Farmington School Officials Approve $1M Computer Replacement Bid

Farmington Public Schools officials on Tuesday approved a $1,194,000 bid for replacement of 1,200 desktop computers that will end up saving the district more than money. 

FPS Director of Information Technology Michael Johnston told board members the bid process began in January, and took longer than usual because none of the first bids met the district's specifications. 

"I'm pretty particular, I want to make sure every single item is met," he said. That included having a model of the computer to test and "see how it's going to work in our environment." 

The bid will replace nearly 20 percent of the district's desktop computers, Johnston said. In order to reduce expenditures, the district extended its replacement program from five to seven years, and so the newest machines are six years old. 

"The machines we have out there were never intended to last seven years," Johnston said, adding some were even beyond the seven-year replacement cycle. 

Board member George Gurrola asked what teachers will be able to do with the new computers that they can't do now. Johnston said a good example would be video editing, which requires more than the 1 gigabyte of memory the existing computers have. 

But that's not all.

Johnston said teachers would save hours of time, just by turning the new computers on and getting them to a boot up screen. "It'll go from just over a minute to 40 seconds (for each computer). That's significant, and that's every single week. If you start putting dollars to that, it's a lot of money."

Board member Murray Kahn asked whether the board should wait before approving the purchase for the outcome of a district-wide technology assessment. "We don't really know where we're going to be in a couple of years," he said.

Johnston said on a school visit to Zeeland, MI, where they're conducting an iPad pilot program, teachers also had desktop computers in their rooms.

"The first thing they said was, do not take my computer away, I need this computer," Johnston said. "I truly believe that (desktop) computer is going to be around for a while."

Funds for the purchase, awarded to Southfield-based Inacomp, Inc., will come from the district's 2012-2013 capital projects technology fund.