Date: Fri 21-Jul-1995

Publication: Bee

Author: KAAREN

Quick Words:

council-technology-school

Full Text:

Council Approves Lease Program For School Technology

The Legislative Council Wednesday night approved the Board of Education's

request for the town to enter a municipal lease "not to exceed $455,000" to

begin the purchase of new computers for the schools.

The council authorized the first selectman to enter into a lease purchase

agreement with Fleet Bank on behalf of the Board of Education after School

Board Chairman Herb Rosenthal explained that a municipal lease would be much

less costly than a commercial lease.

The school board's proposed $1 million computer technology program was given

tacit approval this spring when the council restored $100,000 to the school

budget as seed money for the project.

Mr Rosenthal said the school board expected to spend $100,000 the first year,

$120,000 in the second year, and $145,000 in each of the following two years

to implement the project. During the third and fourth years, however, an

existing $45,000 lease will be paid off, he said.

The project will be done in three phases beginning with the updating of

computer labs in the Middle School. "Then we will work on getting computers

into the classrooms, then on networking the computers throughout the schools,"

Mr Rosenthal said.

Steve Stevenson, a member of the committee which did the technology study for

the school district, said the plan is to spend $250,000 to $260,000 at this

point to begin to implement the program.

"We're also looking strongly at a grant proposal for networking the

computers," Mr Stevenson said. "This is something which could happen within

the next six months."

Councilman Michael Marusa questioned whether the school board still planned to

spend $1 million since the price of the computers in the original proposal had

dropped significantly in recent months. But Councilman Jack Ryan said the

school district should purchase the latest technology available. These

recently introduced models are being sold at higher prices which match that of

the original prices in the proposal, he said.