Borough, school district butt heads

PALMER -- School district officials contend they were getting a bargain when they bought a $300,000 used computer system recently that will mean faster, better service for everyone from school registrars to payroll. Borough officials, however, aren't so happy about the deal.

When the school district bought a used AS/400 computer server from Alaska Communications System this summer, Borough Manager John Duffy said, it violated a year-old agreement with the borough that requires them to notify each other in advance of any technology changes and to coordinate those efforts.

"The actions taken by the school district have significant, immediate and long-term fiscal and technological impacts for both organizations," Duffy said in a memo to the borough mayor and all assembly members earlier this month.

Currently the district and borough share a central information management system, which is housed at the borough building. But this system, school district administrators claim, is slow, out-of-date, not tailored to their needs and overworked between the demands of the two organizations.

"All student records, year-end reports required by federal and state governments for continued grants, nutrition services, warehouse purchase orders -- you name it," said district public information specialist Kim Floyd. "We use it for things as simple as printing labels for mailing."

The current system often becomes bogged down at critical times, when both groups are doing payroll, for example. District officials described one day this month when employees had to wait for more than two hours for the system to complete a single task.

"We can't get what we need quickly," Floyd said.

When the district pitched its case to the school board last winter for a new information management system, Superintendent Pat Chesbro pointed out that access to basic statistics on students is of growing importance in a state and country where standards-based education has become the trend. Those who are handing out the government money and grants want to know the outcome of those dollars.

With the old system, the superintendent maintained, it would simply be too time consuming and costly to come up with many of these statistics, if it could do it at all.

Based on these arguments, the Mat-Su School Board set aside $350,000 to purchase a new student management information system.

The administration solicited bids, but found that one of the responses was cost prohibitive and the other would, in the long run, cost too much as well.

A committee of board members, administrators and support staff concluded that the current student information program could meet their needs if it was installed on a better, faster system. Based on this, the superintendent authorized the purchase of the AS/400 for $95,000 plus the cost of hardware and network equipment, coming to a total of around $300,000.

"We solicited quotes from other organizations that dealt with the AS/400, and the computer that was purchased from ACS was at a significant savings to the district," Floyd said. "We would have been remiss in not taking advantage of that opportunity."

During a recent meeting, several school board members praised the administration's bargain hunting. Such praise isn't coming from the borough assembly, however.

"I'm gravely concerned about it. For me, the bottom line is the cost," assembly member Sara Jansen said at a joint meeting with the school board last week.

Borough officials argue that splitting the two systems will be costly to both parties because there will be redundant hardware, software, maintenance, infrastructure and office space.

"As far as we are concerned, it is a step backwards," Duffy told the Frontiersman last week. He said the borough, too, had been looking at possibly upgrading the system and with a heads-up from the district, he said, the two organizations could have combined their efforts. Instead, he contends, the district and borough are scrambling to collaborate after the fact.

Duffy said he and other borough officials are continuing to meet with the school district in hopes of hammering out a new technology plan by the end of the month, one that he feels should include a joint operation.

In the meantime, the district has not hooked up its newly purchased AS/400.