School District Hit With Unexpected, Non-Budgeted $466K Bill

PFLUGERVILLE, TX -- School district officials have been hit with an unexpected bill of nearly half-a-million bill as it transitions into a new software information system, according to a published report.

The $466,000 payment has yielded a measure of sticker shock to district officials as it hadn’t been budgeted, the Austin American-Statesman reports. The payment covers fees related usage of the Internet Based Texas Computer Cooperative Software (iTCCS). Problem is, the district didn’t originally budget for the usage cost because officials planned to have a new software system called Focus already in use.

“When we built our budget for this year, we built it on the assumption that this year we would be live with Focus on both the student and the business information systems,” district chief financial officer Kenneth Adix told board members in a recent school board meeting. “We literally shut iTCCS off, not incurring iTCCS fees this year. We didn’t budget to pay iTCCS anything.”

But the Statesman reports the district has continued to use iTCCS for seven months on the student side and 12 months on the business side, thus accruing the $466,000 in fees. The board approved paying the bill during its monthly meeting Feb. 18, the newspaper added.

The Focus software system that was supposed to replace iTCCS provides an array of district-related services, including student and parent access to grades and attendance data, and also is used for attendance reporting, online gradebooks and other administrative functions.

The Statesman says the district spent $578,000 to use Focus, which included acquisition and licensing fees. In 2015, staff paid $241,000 and submitted $128,000 to cover student services this school year.

“Focus has been live on the student side all year, but we’ve left iTCCS in place to check and use to basically to have a fail-safe, and a check against what’s going on in Focus,” Adix told the board. “On the business side, the switch hasn’t been flipped on. We’re literally using iTCCS for the financials I present to you each month and what we use as a district.”

District staff offered a bit of good news amidst the unexpected bill: there will be substantial savings in the coming years by using Focus software. The previous system cost $25 per student annually, but will decrease to $8.50-$9 per student annually when the district moves into its second year of using the software, the newspaper reported.

“I would like to see a cost-savings comparison now that it’s going to push out integration of our financial portion,” Trustee Rob Reyes said. “Since we’re paying $400,000-plus tonight for the service we were trying to integrate, I just want to see what the savings look like when it’s all said and done.”