IT Department Presents Budget to School Board

Planning for the 2010-2011 Board of Education continued at Tuesday evening's board meeting with a discussion of the district's technology costs for the coming year.

The board has been reviewing the budget in parts, with Tuesday being the fourth part of an on-going series of presentations from district administrators.  The presentation on the technology budget followed a presentation of a new student management system for the district's computers.

Board Business Administrator Robert Berman and Brian Auker, the district's chief technology officer structured the presentation around the personnal needed for the techlonogy department, the operating costs of the department and the leases for computers.

The district currently has 2,500 desktop computers in use in the 10 schools and the administrative offices. These range in age, but it estimated that about 50-percent are four years old or older.  The district also has about 400 laptops that are used on laptop computer carts.  In addition, the teachers of the high school have all been given new Netbooks this year.  Computers that grow old are often used for other purposes.  Some are used to provide parts to fix working computers.

To service and maintain computer operations, the district employs seven full time workers.  The department has recently cut down on the number of workers that it feels are necessary to do the work.  The group consists of two technicians for the elementary and middle schools, two technicians for the high school, a department secretary, a network manager and a chief technology officer. The CTO position was created last summer be combining two previous technology related jobs on the district's central staff. The department also has eight teachers in the schools who work part time in technology.  They receive a stipend as a first responder assisting other staff members in technology related activities.

Operating costs is the money that must go to the supplies and materials that are used by teachers and administrators, internet, and repair.  The supplies and materials include those for the network (email server, administrative services and miscellaneous network cabling) and those for instruction (subscriptions to programs used by students).  The district must also pay for support of the student management system, but this cost will be changing soon with the new system.

The third cost for the district is in computer leases.  Most of the computers are on a four year lease with a few exceptions.  One exception is the Netbooks given to the high school teachers this year which are on a three year lease.  The computers are on a lease-purchase program so at the end of the four years the computers become the property of the district.

After being given time to ask questions regarding the state of the technology budget, all board members said they were satisfied. There were some suggestions made as to how technology could be improved, but these will need further discussion before any changes will be made.