The school system anticipated replacing just over 700 out of more than 4,000 computers in Norwalk schools next year as part of its capital spending plan, but the money to do the replacement project – and other information technology initiatives – was cut in half by city officials to trim expenses.
According to Elio Longo, Norwalk’s exiting chief operating officer, the district typically tries to replace about 700 to 800 computers each year, which means the school system turns over its entire inventory every five years.
But next year, the system will only replace about 200 computers, and stretch out the other 500 for a sixth year.
Longo told the Board of Education during a meeting Tuesday night that the reduction is the result of the district receiving $600,000 less, or $2.1 million instead of $2.7 million, for the city’s move to a Common Core Curriculum.
The district needs $2.7 million to begin implementation of the new curriculum, and it was planning to use some of the IT money from the capital spending plan.
That move was going to leave the district short in implementing a wireless networking project throughout the district, so to keep the wireless effort on track the district is eliminating the replacement of the 500 computers. Additionally, the district is using about $178,000 leftover from the previous capital spending plans to augment the wireless initiative.
The Board of Education approved the budgeting revisions Tuesday night.
“What we continually find ourselves doing is trying to pay for things with limited funds,” said board Chairman Michael Lyons, stressing that the situation was not ideal but something that had to be done. “This is a good use of limited funds.”
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