The evening of 2026-04-14 was a meeting of the Honeoye Falls-Lima Board of Education (BoE).
Primary topic of the evening was adopting next years budget. So that it in turn can go to the voters at the upcoming election day.
Of course, as the Board got together, other items were also discussed. The only one of which that stood out to me, that wasn’t budget related, was a request for volunteers at the Sports Booster Chow Hut. By the sounds of it, the chow hut is very profitable for the sports boosters. Who in turn, use those funds to assist a number of HFL sports activities. So if you like sports, or have kids who do, perhaps you can find time to help them out.
During Public Comment time there were a number of people who commented on the Music program. Put simply, they were not happy with the plan to not replace a retiring music teacher. While I can understand that, as is pointed out often, the school is in the people business. When the budget gets tight, lowering the number of people is how it is balanced. And using retirement seems alot less disruptive then firing. So if it wasn’t the music department taking the hit here, it would be another department. Which would just have those people objecting instead. Or not, as the HFL music program can be rather vocal when it needs to be.
Overall, the proposed (and later accepted) budget felt substantially the same as was discussed at the workshop at the last meeting. I only really saw two significant differences. First, the numbers were nailed down, instead of being rough estimates. And second, adjusting the Tax Certiorari Reserve to meet the legal requirement gains the district ~$300k as a one time bonus. Other then that, same basic idea. Don’t refill a few of the retiring staff, don’t fill most of the new requests, and being tighter with contingencies.
The idea of breaking the tax cap was discussed, but rejected. From context, I think it was more about going over the pros and cons so as to clearly establish why doing so was not a good idea. At least this year. As I understand the math, exceeding the cap will be all but mandatory, eventually.
On that note, proposed tax levy increase is 3.22%
There was an interesting discussion around postponing the budget approval tonight, and instead holding a special meeting to do so next Tuesday. Primary reasoning seemed to be around procedure, where the District does a first and second read before any significant action. Which is true, and makes sense as a standard practice. But for most of those things, the board hasn’t spent the last few months going over the topic. In depth and at length. And didn’t cover the details during their last meeting. While it wasn’t a traditional ‘first read’, the workshop at the last meeting could be interpreted as such. At least if one wanted to. In any case, I’m all in favor of lively discussion such as was had.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the April 14, 2026 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 is also available.