School Budget: Aging Technology Prompts Possible Increase

The Hauppauge School Board held its third budget presentation Tuesday night, giving an overview of the district’s general support, instruction, and transportation for the 2013-14 school year.

A new discussion point for the board this budget season is a consideration to set aside $200,000 each year for improvements and upgrades to the district’s technology systems. If approved, it would mean that $50,000 would be added to the proposed budget in the 2013-14 school year for infrastructure improvements, since there is already $150,000 set-aside for educational equipment. That $200,000 would then be maintained over time in the same way that money is set-aside for building and grounds improvements.

Don Murphy, director of technology, presented the board with district’s current technology problems, which include aging servers, home drive space issues, antiquated switches, old network cabling, email issues, hard drive capacity, slow applications and a challenging back up process.

He said that most network switches are about 8 years old and much of the technology equipment is near its end of life, adding the example that one of the district’s servers died two weeks ago.

“We’re asking the board basically for a financial plan for doing what we need to do and not being caught short down the road for when the system crashes and we don’t have the resources,” Superintendent Patricia Sullivan-Kriss said.

One factor in the discussion has to do with the preparation for PARCC, which is an upcoming state mandate, in which New York education tests will have to be taken and sent via the internet instead of the paper scantron sheets. The order is currently unfunded by the state.

Outside of technology, the school district will see costs rise in transportation for the purchase of two new small buses. The old buses were deemed no longer fit for the transport of students. The district leased the buses this year, but decided purchasing the vehicles would save costs over time.

Another increase the district will see is due to a rise in insurance premiums. Due to multiple storms and Hurrican Sandy, insurance premiums were raised by about 7 percent, James Stucchio, assistant superintendent for business and operations said.