The evening of 2024-03-26 was a meeting of the Honeoye Falls-Lima Board of Education (BoE).
The public portion of the meeting got off to a late start, as the Board was in Executive Session. They are usually pretty good about predicting how long those will take, but predictions aren’t perfect. And nothing wrong with spending a little more time on important topics to be sure they are handled properly.
The recent Mamma Mia show went well. And the swimming pool is back in use. Unrelated topics, except they are both good things to hear.
To celebrate ‘Read Across America‘ apparently 17,000 books were read here. I don’t know what the time frame for that was, or the level of the books counted. Still a good sized number. Important skill to have, as it unlocks so many more.
The legal notice for the budget vote was tabled, for a short time. They had to double check the verbiage. Sounds like it was the normal verbiage that is required by the State. Which, unfortunately, is somewhat confusing. Or just poorly written. Regardless, it’s what is required, so it was approved in the end.
Inspectors for the budget vote were also approved. It’s a small world, as I recognize these names. Or maybe it’s that they have been doing this long enough? Either way, good to have them filling this role.
And the Board discussed the budget itself. We are still looking at 2.91% for the levy increase. And ~$1 million shortfall out of the ~$61 million budget. With two (or four, depending on how you count) weeks to work that out. Not the worst shortfall I’ve seen, and tossing all the ‘asks’ (new requests) gets pretty close, so I expect a proposed budget for the next meeting.
The process used tonight involved ranking ‘asks’. While I think this is generally a good method, it feels like it could miss things. Anything that didn’t show up as an ‘ask’ for next year wouldn’t be part of the discussion. That should be somewhat offset by the staff doing their jobs well. But at the same time, I feel that certain ‘big picture’ topics might manage to be overlooked. Thankfully, I can’t offer any examples, so there may not be any issue.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the March 26, 2024 meeting of the Honeoye Falls-Lima Board of Education.
Agenda’s and similar information can be found at HFL’s BoardDocs page. While a recording will likely be available soon.