NA-FC school board passes $2M bond

Discussion

August 14, 2012

NA-FC school board passes $2M bond

Infrastructure for tech program to be laid

By JEROD CLAPP jerod.clapp@newsandtribune.com The News and Tribune Tue Aug 14, 2012, 08:07 AM EDT

NEW ALBANY — To fund what could be the first step in having students use wireless devices daily in classes, the New Albany-Floyd County Consolidated School Corp.’s board of trustees approved moving forward with a $2 million general obligation bond.

Once sold, the bond will fund infrastructure installation for more wireless network access in each of the district’s buildings. The tax impact on residents is 6 cents per $100 of assessed valuation on their property — or about $60 for a home with a value of $100,000.

Though the district got a quote on equipment and installation from Boice.net, some board members questioned whether that was the best deal.

Lee Cotner, board member, said he had concerns with not bidding out the project with a request for proposals to see if there’s a better deal.

“I just have a problem with doing a project like this without getting other bids...,” Cotner said. “I just have a problem with a no-bid project where we don’t have at least someone else in comparison to say ‘yeah, this may be the low bid or the best bid,’ but we don’t know.”

Fred McWhorter, chief business officer, said the district will use the state’s quantity purchase agreement — contracts with vendors the state has bid out. He said Boice.net is a QPA approved vendor.

“We still could bid the project, we still haven’t narrowed it down to 100 percent of what particular items we want to get,” McWhorter said. “As soon as funding gets approved, that’s the next step, narrowing that down.”

Cotner asked why the district wouldn’t ask other QPA vendors about their pricing. McWhorter said Boice.net is near the district and that other companies may cost more because of their distance.

But Neal Smith, board member, said going by a list of contractors doesn’t explore enough possibilities.

“But that’s just like saying, let’s do all our shopping at Walmart because we’re pretty sure they have the lowest price,” Smith said.

Mark Boone, board president, said the board had discussed some redundancies in the estimates provided by Boice.net, but the next step from approving the funding is going through those estimates carefully.

“Boice gave us a pretty detailed quote but if you look at it, every school looks exactly the same,” Boone said. “From the facilities master plan, we spend a lot of money on every building and they’re not the same and every building does not have existing technologies.”

The board passed three resolutions for the bond unanimously with the exception of Jan Anderson, board member, who was absent.

The first wireless infrastructure budget was set at about $1.95 million from the bond, with another $50,000 going toward associated fees with setting up the bond. Thomas Peterson, the board’s bond counsel, recommended selling the bond within 60-90 days. The bond’s maturation date was set at Jan. 15, 2014.

The board also discussed a study on salary and benefit comparisons of teachers, administrators and bus drivers in the district with 12 other districts.