Members Present: Bruce Amey, Avon Bob Leiby, Red Jacket
Joe Backer, Letchworth Terry MacNabb, Waterloo
Mike Crowley, GV BOCES Jim McNeil, WFL BOCES
Maria Ehresman, Williamson Camille Sorenson, EduTech
Members Absent:
Members Absent: Joan Cole, Elba Joe Marinelli, WFL BOCES
Mike Glover, GV BOCES Tom Manko, York
Guests:
Guests: Chris Saxby, EduTech
Camille started the meeting by asking Terry MacNabb to share a story regarding a serious security breach in a Syracuse area school district.
Maria Ehresman also shared a security situation in their district.
Students need to know that tampering with computers is a felony.
Everyone in districts needs to be aware of security with technology.
2006-2007 EduTech Year in Review
2006-2007 EduTech Year in Review ·
Edutech works with 47 school districts in a nine county region. Of the 47 districts: 46 use an Edutech supported school system of which 45 are supported by us; 42 districts use a finance program supported by us, 46 use an IEP system through EduTech, and 18 use a cafeteria system.
Schools have a high degree of confidence in our service and the pricing is reasonable. This service is saturated in the product we sell. When our costs go up, we then need to create new services to generate income.
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Wrote the largest amount of SAA’s in EduTech history totaling over $9 million. This equates to work and demand on the staff.
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Shared technical staff continues to be very popular service.
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Test scoring department spent a lot of time working with SED on what they will need for this year. Our emphasis is on making sure we understand the requirements, extract data correctly, and work with the districts to make sure data is correct. We have a staff that is dedicated to making sure the data is correct. The volume of tests has increased from 50,000+ to 90,000+. Spent last year developing and implementing a number of efficiencies within the system. Have hired retired educational people that return every year for the peak times.
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SIF – add information to your student system and it gets populated across all your systems. Are currently running in pilot mode in a few school districts to various degrees. At Midlakes they have begun the process where they set up all the IDs for their students. Still in a pilot mode, when we get it right we will offer across all the districts. Also looking at SIF to create efficiencies on how we load to the warehouse in an automated fashion.
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E-rate: staff brings in approximately $2 million
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Audit: We are constantly working with auditors. If you have an audit, we have an audit.
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Daylight savings time: helped with the process this year in the background without people being aware of it.
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Instructional technology: Computers are there for instructional purposes. We continue to work with staff on emerging technology into the instructional setting.
Ongoing initiatives:
Ongoing initiatives: Continue to try and evaluate what services you want, how can we help you, problem solve issues in your schools, and deliver technologies you need.
Bruce Amey asked if districts were using thin client applications. Wayne has it in a number of the areas, but not across the districts.
2008-2009 EduTech Year in Review
2008-2009 EduTech Year in Review
Budget Process
Budget Process
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Working on an enhancement to the “Final Request for Services” – part A and part B to give you a more complete picture of your EduTech total expenditures.
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Goal
- healthy functional budget which supports the infrastructure of EduTech provided district services and the staff necessary to provide the services
- flexible balance in a changing environment of new districts services required
Expenditure Budget History:
Expenditure Budget History: Beginning to feel the impact of operating on a flat budget the last few years.
Recommending a 4.1% increase from the prior year.
Bob Leiby asked how the restructuring of staff is reflected in this budget. Has EduTech had to increase the salary base to hire people or has it been reduced. Camille explained that we have maintained the positions in the budget, took the people who left and created similar numbers of FTE’s and functionally organized the titles. At this time, feel we will incur a small savings from the new hires.
Joe Backer stated that he didn’t want his silence to reflect that he supports the increase. He would like EduTech to keep looking at the budget.
Maria Ehresman asked about the growth of on-line services? Need to make the program more visible. This is the wave of the future. Students will take an on-line course in college.
EduTech is bringing to you a budget that we feel has contracted increases in salary and benefits and then nominal increases in areas that have been flat in past years.
Bob Leiby asked if anything in our services could be abandoned to save money. Camille stated that what generally gets abandoned is versions of software, which doesn’t translate to savings in staff.
Bob Leiby wanted to know if BOCES receives any state aid for upgrading closets and the answer is no.
EduTech will continue to look at ways to minimize expenses, be inventive on how we can reduce expenditures, and increase revenue.
Next Meeting:
December 6, 2007
8:30 AM
RIT Inn and Conference Center