The morning of 2026-03-07 was a Budget Workshop for the Honeoye Falls Board of Trustees.
First off I’ll highlight this was a budget workshop. Which means all numbers are subject to change. If I even heard them correctly in the first place. Having said that…
It’s anticipated the tax rate will remain flat, and will not exceed the tax cap. For a total budget of ~$2.7 million.
For now, certain insurance lines have a 10% increase in for planning. Because they haven’t gotten the numbers finalized, but they are confident it won’t be less then this. Fair enough. Budget planning is always some degree of guesswork. As Yoda say, ‘Impossible to see the future is‘.
And that’s it for thoughts on the budget itself. But while the budget is numbers, those numbers correlate to other activities. Which is where budget workshops are so interesting. Because of all the other plans and ideas that come up, independent of the numbers.
For example, the Village is apparently ineligible for certain grants because they have already committed to making the purchase. So they are being more careful in planning things out for the upcoming ~$3 million in fires trucks. Still a few years out, details to nail down and such. But they are playing the grant game, in an attempt to minimize local tax burden. While there is no free lunch, the taxpayers always pay in the end, I can’t fault them for making the effort.
The Village’s deer management plan has taken in ~30 deer this season. I haven’t heard much about this since it got going a few years back. No idea how that translates into accident counts, flowers eaten, etc. But good to have the update all the same. Also some discussion on making sure this program continues long term.
Fireworks will be coming back for my brothers birthday. Not really. But also, sort of yes. Years back, my brother was born during Village Days, and they had fireworks. So we would tell him it was for his birthday, even if they weren’t always on the actual date of birth. Many a birthday party while the Village had fireworks in the background. Kids loved it, the dog hated it. Is one of those little things in life that can be amusing.
The bulk of the sewer system is apparently nearly 100 years old. Put together of 3 foot clay sections. Needless to say, there are leaks in it. So the Village is considering the logistics of checking for those leaks, and then fixing them. By the sounds of it, not a this year budget item. But perhaps down the road a bit. Because we all want the sewer to work.
As an aside, my prediction of snow this morning was wrong. We did get rain. So I was right on precipitation, just not temperature. Not complaining either way, as it meant I made it to this meeting.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the March 07, 2026 meeting of the Honeoye Falls Board of Trustees.
As far as I could tell there was no Agenda as such. Which makes sense, as the topic was ‘Budget’.