Board spends more than $585K on new tech
Pettigrew abstains from contract vote
The Mars Area school board on Monday purchased more than a half-million dollars in new technology, and creditedthe district’s business manager with preventing the costfrom being higher.
The district had solicited bids for servers, memory, storage, licenses and 661 Hewlett Packard Chromebooks.
There was only one bidder — ITPS, which has ties to the district solicitor and a board member. The total cost of the ITPSbid was $648,799.
The Chromebooks will be for the one-to-one technology program in the middle school to replace laptops where the lease expired.
“This investment will definitely benefit out students and staff,” said board President Dayle Ferguson.
Board member William Pettigrew, the former district superintendent, abstained on awarding the contract and sat outside the room when the board discussed the bid. In addition, an independent lawyer represents the district on all matters involving ITPS.
After seeing the bid, Business Manager Jill Swaney checked the state’s approved bidder list, and found lower prices on the memory, VMWare License and the Chromebooks and related items.
Consequently, the board awarded contracts to:
• ITPS for Cisco servers, $136,842; server offload card, $12,867; and Jestor storage, $34,731.
• Black Rock for memory, $93,912; and VMware License, $142,268.
• ePlus for the Chromebooks, $141,176; Google Chrome Management, $16,525; and cover cases for the laptops, $7,522.
The total cost of the contracts was $585,844, a savings of more than $62,000, Ms. Swaney said.
Christine Valenta voted against the contract, saying that she was “uncomfortable” with only one bid being received.
“We should have reached out and gone beyond the normal bid process,” she said, adding that other potential bidders might not have responded because the district “was already aligned with ITPS.”
Some residents also said the purchase didn’t sit well with them because of the connection with Mr. Pettigrew and solicitor Tom King’s law firm.
“I’m sure that I’m not the only one thinking that it just so happens to be the technology company (associated) with two people in the room,” JuliaKonitsky said
In other business, the board officially removed ninth-grade football as an athletic supplemental activity. The program was cut from the 2018-19 budget. Freshmen can play for the junior varsity team.
Mrs. Ferguson announced that the special education corrective action plan was accepted by the state, and will be posted on the district website forparents to see.
“We feel very confident that we are heading in the right direction and we have the right team in place to keep theball rolling,” she said.
The new director of special education, Travis Mineard, will start July 30 after being released earlier than expected from the Ambridge Area School District, Superintendent Wes Shipley said.