The evening of 2026-02-10 was a meeting of the Honeoye Falls-Lima Board of Education (BoE), and Program Budget Advisory Council (PBAC).
Full disclosure: I sit on the PBAC, so some of these Observations aren’t exactly from the Audience.
Before the HFL budget presentations, some guests from BOCES offered a presentation on their budget. Which was follow up from some questions that were asked at a previous meeting. I thought it was good information on BOCES, and what they do. But it didn’t really cover Stephanie’s point about them not being bound by a levy increase. Unlike the school districts. Credit to Stephanie for keeping on that.
Contracts were awards for another part of the Capital Project. 3.B? 3.D? It’s hard to keep track, there is so much work going on. This particular part seemed focused on two main features. Renovating parts of the long hallway in the B wing of the High School. And the turf football field. I’m interested in seeing how the hallway turns out, as there was talk about ‘nodes’ wrapping around the wall to ceiling. Which made no sense to me, hence wanting to see the finished results.
As for the Budget presentations, Colin was at his son’s sectional event. So he recorded his portion as a video to share. Which worked, especially as it wasn’t the only video shown.
Colin highlighted how aid ratios have been dropping over the past few years. It appears the State thinks we are wealthier. At least in proportion to other parts of the state, as compared to where we were in the past. Because, at least for these formulas, it’s all relative.
Indirectly this shows why I think there should be a plan to operate with zero aid. Hopefully, a never needed plan. But in the disaster planning list, zero aid should be one of the scenarios. Just like a zombie apocalypse. Because if you are ready for it, any lesser disaster can be shrugged off.
Lima was up next with their ~8 minute video presentation. I liked how it opened, with students walking past Allison in the hallway. It was amusing watching the kids react. Some of them just walked past, clearly off to do other things. Whatever silly thing the principal is doing wasn’t important. But others were just as obviously trying to work through the questions: ‘What is the principal doing? What is going on here?’ They would stop and look, turning back to the camera. Or maybe the kids just wanted to be recorded. Either way, she was starting to gather a crowd by the end.
During the post-video discussion, the idea of creating a ‘Portrait of a new student’ was mentioned. Kind of the flip side of the ‘Portrait of a Graduate‘. Sounds like it would help in planning for the incoming kindergartners, which can be challenging. Say what you will about the rest of the grades, nearly all of those kids are already in school. Making predictions easier.
Manor gave a pre-video introduction, which I didn’t particularly like, from a process standpoint. I understand, they have alot to say. And it is mostly good and informative. But if your video presentation needs you to give preparatory remarks? Then the video has failed in at least part of it’s purpose.
Besides that nitpick, the video was actually rather good. It used the framing of a news show, which lent itself well to sharing information without getting lost in being entertaining. Sure, there were plenty of jokes and other silliness in the 6 or 7 minute long video (I lie, it’s closer to eight minutes). But they were generally subtle and less disruptive then other videos.
As an aside, it’s an odd world we live in where I am evaluating the budget videos on their non-budgetary aspects. Perhaps because, at least in Manor’s case, the budget focus was very much of the ‘stay the course’ approach. Which was complicated by this being a ~6% budget increase, for this building. Which, unfortunately, is how things tend to go. ‘Keep doing what we are doing, with no additions’ tends to translate to ‘a budget increase of at least 4%’.
After the presentations, the PBAC separated to discuss. And by the time we finished, the BOE had finished the public portion of their meeting. But thanks to the wonders of modern technology, I can watch the recordings afterwards. And having done that… I have nothing else to say.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the February 10, 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.