Last night (2017-01-17) was a budget study session for 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.
This budget study session was at the Lima building. Agenda was the presentations from Lima (K-1), Facilities, and Transportation. They each spoke on what greatness they had done over the past year, and what they wanted to change for next year. Along with that was a budget projection/wish list.
It’s always nice to see the Lima building, and what the kids are up to there. I don’t get out there very often (usually once a year, for this meeting). I should go visit when it’s warmer and see how they use the outside classroom.
Lisa (Lima Principal) started things off, but she had a good sized collection of other people there to talk too. Including a pair of students there to show how they used the iPad’s during class. Nothing quiet like a hands on demonstrations.
The focus of Lima’s presentation was the occupational therapy given to students for poor fine motor skills, and the use of iPad’s in classes. They acknowledged the likely connection between the two (ie, use of handheld electronics delays development of fine motor skills). It will be interesting to see how they handle this in the future.
Kevin, Director of Facilities (not Buildings and Grounds), discussed the difficulties in keeping fully staffed, and the volume of space that needs regular cleaning and maintenance. School is not a small space.
They also discussed cleaning for hygiene, not appearances. In doing so, appearances would take care of themselves. Good idea I think, but it was ironic when they next mentioned energy usage.
Energy costs are down, yet usage is up. There was a desire to lower usage, in the interests of lowering the districts carbon ‘paw’ print. I would think it would be better to focus on lowering the cost, and letting the carbon take care of itself (much like with hygiene and appearance above).
Bill, Director of Transportation, took everyone outside to see the newest bus in the fleet. While it is a nice bus, and has lots of nice features, I found the four obvious cameras a bit disturbing. Perhaps I’m old fashioned, but I think we as a society have gone too far in our recording of our every action. Sure, it has it’s benefits at times, but it can just as easily be used against us.
There was discussion about changing the bus replacement schedule. Not for this year, keeping things the same for now. But they are gathering the data, and crunching the numbers, to see if a shorter schedule would safe money. From what I could see, I think a 5 year rotation would be more cost effective then the current 9 (small bus) and 10 (big bus). We’ll see how that goes (and more importantly, what the community/voters/tax payers think about buying more buses more often).
Transportation also wants to hire more drivers. This was prompted by the difficulties finding substitutes, and how frequently they are needed. I think there is a degree of logic too it. If you know most days you need a sub or two, having them already there saves the time and effort of finding them. The question becomes, if they aren’t needed for driving, are their other tasks they could do. It sounds like there are, and only 2% of the time are no subs needed.
After that, the PBAC and BoE split up to discuss their thoughts on the presentations. Next week, Manor School…
As the meeting went late, and I had to get up early, this post was delayed until the next day. Likely be how budget study sessions go, as they have a habit of running late. Even if that has improved over the years (ending at 10PM is much better then ending at midnight).