Proposed 2008-09 Budget Aims to Maintain Current Programs in Cost Efficient Manner

Residents of the Honeoye Falls – Lima School District will vote on the proposed 2008-09 school budget on May 20, 2008 from 6 AM to 9 PM in the HF-L High School Lobby.  The proposed budget totals $38,675,847 and represents a 3.78% increase over the 2007-08 school budget.  The average projected tax rate changes are -3.00% in Monroe County municipalities and 0.45% in other County municipalities. 

The proposed 2008-09 budget:
• Maintains current programs—no new programs will be added.
• Maintains class size improvements made in 2007-08.
• Reallocates and increases instructional staffing by 1.483 positions to address shifting enrollment at the K-5 level, growing enrollment at the 9-12 level, additional foreign language enrollment at the high school level and continued foreign language instruction at the primary level.
• Leaves two administrative positions unfilled—a secondary Assistant Principal and Food Service Director.  Declining enrollment at the Middle School allows the District to reassign a full time teacher to also serve as a “Dean of Students.” This position utilizes existing staff to address responsibilities previously associated with the unfilled administrative Assistant Principal position with a teacher on special assignment to assist with student management.  The Food Service Director position will be addressed through reorganization of existing staff and a BOCES shared service.  Monroe County schools have an average student to administrator ratio of 156 to one.  HF-L’s student to administrator ratio is 181 to one.  In the past ten years, despite an overall increase in enrollment and a sharp increase in the number of administrative mandates, the portion of the budget dedicated to administrative salaries has decreased from 4.8% to 4.1%.
• Includes two contingency instructional staff positions that may be used to further address class size concerns, as needed.
• Moves to an all Enriched Developmental full-day Kindergarten program.  While the Board is committed to allowing for parent choice, interest in the current extended-day and half-day programs has waned, and providing three programs has become costly due to transportation expenses associated with the programs.  Parents may still opt for an early release option for their child, but will need to pick their child up at school.  The elimination of the additional bus runs associated with the extended-day and half-day programs has resulted in a savings of $70,000.

The Monroe County sales tax revenue remains under litigation and is still an unknown revenue factor for the 2008-09 school year.  In the 2007-08 school year, HF-L did not receive $320,000 in anticipated Monroe County sales tax revenue due to the Monroe County “F.A.I.R.” Plan.  A spending moratorium was put into place, and the administrative positions of the Middle School Assistant Principal and Food Service Director were left unfilled as efforts to accommodate this loss of revenue.  In the 2008-09 school year, the impact of the Monroe County “F.A.I.R.” Plan would be a projected $650,000 loss of revenue. 

However, the Monroe County schools’ recent appeal of the court’s decision was a success.  In a unanimous decision, judges in the Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court ordered Monroe County to share all of the sales tax money it collects with Monroe County schools, as agreed to in the Morin-Ryan agreement. Based on the current status of the case, the projected 2008-09 tax rates that accompany the budget being proposed assume the recovery of $650,000 in sales tax revenue.

Should the Court of Appeals reverse the decision, the tax levy, or percentage of the budget funded by taxes, could increase.  This would impact the tax rates for Monroe County residents only because the Monroe County tax revenue received by the District serves as a tax credit for only Monroe County residents.  Therefore, the loss of this revenue would also impact only Monroe County residents.  Residents in Livingston County experienced a similar impact several years ago when Livingston County discontinued sharing sales tax revenues with its schools.  The District hopes to have a firm conclusion to the County sales tax revenue case by July, when the tax rates are officially set each year and will continue to communicate updates regarding this issue and tax rates, as they are available.

Despite revenue challenges, the District continues to maintain the lowest per-pupil cost of all Monroe County schools, with the third lowest true tax rate.

Detailed information on the proposed 2008-09 budget is posted on the District’s website at www.hflcsd.org.

The annual chicken barbeque will again be held on budget vote day beginning at 4 PM at the HF-L Support Services building.  The cost is $8.00.