The evening of 2026-05-12 was a meeting of the Honeoye Falls-Lima Board of Education (BoE).
Along with the Public Hearing for next years budget, and the Meet the Candidate event. Proposed Budget is $67,740,000, with a tax levy increase of 3.22%. That levy increase provides ~$1 million additional revenue. And does NOT exceed the cap. Big expense increases were health insurance related. While wages were almost flat.
The budget gap was discussed. Which I think is somewhat misleading at this point. Right now, there is no budget gap. Yes, focus on what was done to make the budget balanced. Tell us all about those changes, especially with how it relates to last year. Retiree positions not being refilled, Tax Certiorari reserves, and so on. Tell us all about those things. But don’t call it a gap anymore. The job has been done, the gap has been filled.
I acknowledge I’m being nitpicky here.
After what Gene (Superintendent) said during the past budget workshop, I made a point of asking about busses and what a no vote would mean. The answer I was given: a no vote means no busses. Good to know. Because this is one of those questions where I don’t care what the answer is. I care that I have the correct answer. So I can now go back to saying proposition 2 talks about debt because the State meddles with the wording (remember, in New York the 2% tax cap never actually equals 2%). By all accounts, the plan has been, and continues to be, to buy busses with cash.
The Meet the Candidates event was managed by Carol, which I think she has done in the past. Someone needs to do it. And it shouldn’t be a candidate (which rules out the current Board president and vice president) and could be a conflict of interest for staff (which rules out many of the people in the room). Carol did the job well, which was mostly having the right candidate speak at the right time.
One of the questions asked during the event was if the candidate was endorsed by… And I missed the name of the group/organization/individual. Regardless, everyone said no. So I guess it’s a moot point. No endorsements by unknown entity.
As I’ve said before, I don’t like the idea of professional educators sitting on the Board of Education. So I asked the candidates their thoughts on the idea. I fully expected to hear about the potential benefits (already an expert and knows what is going on in the classrooms), and I did. I also heard about potential downsides. Namely that it could limit perspectives and lead to a siloed viewpoint. While the topic still concerns me, I will admit those concerns are lessened having heard from the candidates.
Overall, I was impressed by some of the candidates. While some were more mediocre. Not bad, which is good. I like it when I can say ‘I think all the candidates could do the job well enough’. Which I can say about this group. If you aren’t already certain who you are voting for, I’d suggest watching the recording.
As an aside, I heard two of the candidates end their speech by asking for support. And three didn’t. This is one of those little things I’ve noticed over the years. Does the request help? Does not making it matter? We’ll see in just over a week.
After that was the regular meeting. Which was pretty straightforward. There was an update on the Capital project, so pictures of the progress.
And a discussion on the duties of President/Vice-President of the Board. This discussion was framed about this school Board, so isn’t relevant to most people out there. But if you ignore the framing, I think much of it could well apply to anyone looking to lead a group of people. Even if it didn’t, as was pointed out, at least one (and potentially three) new people will be on the Board soon enough. So it was good information for them to hear.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the May 12, 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.