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Wednesday, May 8, 2024
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During Monday’s (May 6) regular meeting of the Maine Township High School Dist. 207 Board of Education, board members approved the annual technology department budget for 2024-2025, as is usually done around this time of the year. This year’s budget was set at $4,685,740.
Major projects include network switches and new wiring all playing key roles in maintaining the digital infrastructure at the district’s all three schools.
“We are seeing about a 5% increase over last year. A lot of that has to do with assuming software that we brought on during COVID, that was funded by ESSER (emergency relief grants by Illinois) funds,” said Assistant Superintendent Shawn Messmer. “While we have cut many of those products, there are many that have now become staples that most of our teaching staff use as part of a regular education program.”
According to a district memo regarding the proposed budget, a formula discrepancy in the previous technology budget for 2023-2024, resulted in it being $295,000 lower than projected. Still, the district was able to operate within the approved budget. Messmer also mentioned that another reason the budget was higher this year was because of planned infrastructure projects.
“A switch is a giant box that has all the wires that come in for each individual classroom that connects that to the server in the server room, and that’s the distribution of all the software programs. It’s the wiring that gets you to all of your classrooms and any other space,” said Assistant Superintendent of Business Mary Kalou.
Funds are needed for new switches at Maine South and East, while Maine West’s switches were replaced and included in the previous year’s budget. The current switches are described as over 10 years old with the newest ones a minimum of eight. As Kalou said, everything comes through these switches and into classrooms like the internet, software, and data. New switches also increase connectivity speed.
“With the end of the ESSER funds, the software budget added over $200,000 in software costs that were previously funded by ESSER. To help offset that increase and to build capacity for new software, a review of all existing software was conducted, and many software programs were eliminated. These changes caused the software budget to increase by $150,000,” the memo read.
Kalou said that the technology budget is up given the district’s number of switches, as well as the expansion of devices like Chromebooks to teachers, assistants and students. The end of the ESSER funds also played a role.
Another major project mentioned in the budget is the replacement of several IDF (intermediate distribution frame) racks’ wiring. Like switches, this wiring and cable management increases the strength and speed of the system’s connectivity.
Out of the $4,685,740 budget, $2,515,000 is for instructional hardware. As Kalou said, a large part of the budget remains focused on students. She described the budget as modest with Messmer reminding the board that the largest technology budget increase they’ve had was around 21%.
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