EduTech Steering Committee
October 30, 2017, 8:30 to 10 am,
RIT Inn & Conference Center
Members Present:
Paul Alioto, Dansville CSD Christopher Dailey, Batavia CSD
Scott Bischoping, WFL BOCES Michael Hayden, Clyde-Savannah CSD
Greg Bump, Mt. Morris CSD Marty Rotz, Romulus CSD
Mathis Calvin, Wayne CSD Camille Sorenson, EduTech
Members Absent:
Kevin MacDonald, GVEP
Guest:
Chris Saxby, EduTech
Scott Bischoping began the meeting by sharing with the committee what the process will be for finding Camille’s successor.
EduTech Year in Review
Camille explained how we look at the environment and decide where to make changes.
The state has asked us to retrofit ASAP system to process NYSITELL. Our districts get this service for free as we charge other RICs for the development and use of the system.
Of the 130 staff EduTech has 40-45 are shared staff. When someone leaves, we evaluate what the person does and do we really need. Evaluate the needs and where we can use someone.
EduTech used to support four student systems. Because we don’t need as many staff in the student area, the positions are moved around to where they are needed. The overall headcount stays the same, but the positions are dispersed differently.
We had a banner year in processing over $20 million in SAAs. We were able to move 1.4 FTEs to purchasing and renewal processing, which eased the burden off of Project Coordination.
Camille shared purchase orders processed by month over the year to show where the busy time is
environment.
Greg Bump asked for an example of the state contract change. The State is doing far fewer contracts than ever before. We used to be able to select from State contracts and put the number on the PO.
Follow up –
Under the New York State Information Technology Manufacturer Umbrella Contract implemented November 30, 2015, authorized manufacturers and resellers are listed for technology items. The guidelines require that you go out for mini-bids or a request for quotes to all resellers listed and it is required that you get responses from a certain number. This is by far a different process than previous state bid OGS awards.
Over the past 2 years we have worked both internally as well as with other centers for solutions to this time consuming process. We now have internal bids, we have partnered with other centers expanding other BOCES technology bids along with using a series of National and Federal bids to purchase the items on SAAs. Working through this process has delayed many purchases over the past 18 months. This is an issue across the state and we have worked closely with our business office to find solutions that would be acceptable with our auditors.
Camille showed the committee how a SAA is tracked through the system. The benchmark is four months from sign-off to delivery.
In looking at the numbers noticed districts signoff to PO faxed increased 140% from 2014-15 to 2016-17. Because of this increase added a person to purchasing doubling the capacity and added 1.4 FTE in the renewal process. Remember, we didn’t need to replace an e-Rate or student person, but needed them here.
Internet: Added capacity to allow us to process at a higher speed on a reroute when one Internet hub is down and in the process of adding a generator to our LeRoy hub.
Camille then discussed the number of investigations we did last year. Paul Alioto suggested this might be an area for increased staffing. Mathis asked if the same investigations can happen with gmail vs Exchange. . Currently 29 of 47 districts are using gmail.
Follow up –
In both cases we can retrieve requested investigation information equally.
The difference is if you are on Gmail, and you have 'Super Admin' users in your district, these users can delete downloaded archived data (not the archive itself but downloaded data) as part of an in-house investigation. The 'Super Admin' user can also view everyone's email.
Camille will look into Paul’s question in regards to increasing staff able to do investigations at Jeff Ginsberg’s level.
We are currently watching help desk response benchmark in regards to calls to help desk and meeting targets. Have noticed a spike in response time for levels one and three. Closely monitoring as this could be associated with conversions that are taking place.
2018-19 Budget
Camille shared the process and timeline for budget approval.
Proposed Expenditure Budget
·
$15,827,121, +$247,253, +1.59%
EduTech 2018-19 Services Pricing
·
+1.52% increase on all EduTech services
·
+0.0% change in all EduTech installation charges
·
+2.00% increase for EduTech shared Technicians, Coordinators of Instructional Technology, Technology and Technology Integration
·
+4.00% increase for shared Data Coordinators
·
GVEP Administrative fee, percentage of annual EduTech purchases, all services in 2016-17 will remain at 1% in 2018-2019 for GVEP districts.
Factors Driving the Budget-Budget Parameters
·
Salary – budgeted at +3.0% per contract, LRS (ERS) 12%/TRS budget at 9%
·
Health care budgeted at +4%, Dental +5%, Workers Compensation +10%, Internal services (O&M) +1.25%
·
Equipment +0%, Supplies +0%, Mileage +0%, Training +0%, Other Expenses +0%
Changes Going Forward
·
Smart Schools Bond Act
·
Declining enrollment, RWADA based pricing
·
Email – Exchange vs Google
·
State Assessment Processing – scanning vs online (what support is needed)
·
Saturated Administrative services – Finance, Student, Cafeteria, IEP
·
Centralized servers (Finance, Student, IEP)
·
Cloud based 1-1 Computing (servers, networking, wireless)
Marty Rotz asked if EduTech’s State Assessment charges would cease if a district went to a vendor scoring model. Camille described how in a vendor scoring model EduTech still provides services up front, in the answer sheets and in the back end on merging the data to the student systems, the data warehouse and state ed. The piece that a BOCES regional scoring service performs (or a district) goes away. There was a discussion on vendor scoring and EduTech’s role in offering the service. Camille indicated that because the regional scoring has been a BOCES service in our area, it would be a BOCES decision not a RIC decision, understanding that in other regions in the state it’s a RIC service.
Committee approved Camille sending information to each individual district with a memo saying that if they had any questions to contact committee members.
Next Meeting:
November 14, 2017
8:30 to 10:00 am
RIT Inn & Conference Center
Back to top