BTHOB-98 said:
note: The taxpayers get asked for technology upgrades every time we are asked for a bond almost every election year
I'll address this one. Full Transparency: I do not work with RRISD. I think this bond is crazy. I live in RR and have kids in RRISD. I'm in IT Sales. I do know people who support the district from an IT vendor standpoint, so have a little insight.
For the past 12ish years I've worked with ISDs across the state, both local to the Austin area and as far out as El Paso and down to the Valley. This could get long, and maybe people don't care, but there are many very valid reasons technology upgrades are in every bond. I'm speaking in generalizations below b/c there are A LOT of ISD bonds coming up across the state, but much of this is likely a factor in RRISD.
IT in school districts, on a whole, is vastly under-funded. I'm sure there are exceptions out there like Lake Travis (I also don't work with them). When budget cuts happen, and they do often, IT is usually one of the first places hit. They are constantly being asked to do more with less. And this is all compounded by many things, including legislation. Some examples are things like HB507 a few years back, which mandated that if any parent requested surveillance in a special education room, it has to be added. But the districts weren't given additional funding for this. This isn't as simple as adding a camera to a classroom. That video has to be stored somewhere, and depending on retention policies, that storage can get expensive. Then add in the need for cameras and security at schools, on busses, etc and it adds up quickly. State and local govt struggle with this too, especially with Bodycams for the police. Or when a crime happens and they have to pull all camera data and image every phone on-site for evidence, but i digress, back to schools...
Then there's the fact that districts are on a 3-5 year tech refresh cycle, most being on a 5 year. Then understand that the government gave out a crazy amount of money in 2020 to purchase infrastructure that has now been in use for going on 5 years. These districts don't have the money to make those same purchases to replace these assets. And by year 5, a lot of technology is pretty dated. Tech moves quickly. Software vendors change requirements as they update and sometimes won't even run on older hardware. Windows is an example.
Broadcom bought VMware somewhat recently and is making life insanely difficult for everyone, but especially school districts, and state/local govt. Most schools are not utilizing a lot of the features and functionality of VMware, but the licensing structure was changed. I won't go into the full details here, but many districts are getting renewal costs of anywhere from 4x-10x of their previous annual renewal. I've seen districts get a renewal bill from VMware that is more than their entire IT budget for the year. So, kick vmware out and move to something else right? Well that costs time and money too. And most districts are already understaffed and likely have staff who don't have the same IT knowledge as corporations, because they don't pay enough for top talent. So moving off vmware costs money on the software side, but also in staff training, and potentially needing new hardware as well.
I worked with a district in west texas who couldn't refresh any of their aging hardware b/c their budgets were slashed numerous times. It got bad enough that they couldn't even pay their Microsoft renewal. And guess what? Software vendors don't care. They will stop support and sometimes turn off features/functionality without an active support contract. This gets even worse as many applications are move to as-a-service. Previously you might be able to get away with running applications without support, but with as-a-service, if you don't pay, the service gets turned off.
Then you have the fun part where schools are prime targets for cyber attacks. Putting infrastructure in place to try and prevent a cyber attack isn't simple, and its not a single solution. Cyber security is layers upon layers, and its not cheap. So you can probably imagine that most districts are not very secure. Its not a matter of if a district gets hit, its when it gets hit. And then what is the process for recovery. Sure there is insurance, but that is based on how secure your environment is. The more secure, the cheaper the insurance, which means its not cheap for IDSs. And even if you have insurance, when the school gets hit, most don't have a great recovery plan. Which means its expensive and time consuming to recover. The government can step in to help, but its not guaranteed. It can take weeks/months to recover, and if they get hit with a ransom, the advice is not to pay. Which means, you have to have a system in place to have a clean copy of data (not cheap) or rebuild the entire environment (time intensive, especially with limited staff and resources) and hope you have an older copy that is actually clean and doesn't lose too much data. Basically, its expensive all around.
I could go on and on with other examples of how districts struggle on the IT side, but these budget cuts/shortfalls eventually rear their ugly head somewhere and the IT staff gets to come to the school board and say "i told you so" regarding all the things that they tried to get funded up were denied or cut from the budget. But now the board has no choice...and there's no money. So what do they do? They throw it in a bond. And guess what happens from there. Well, now the district has funds to pay for some things that need to be done, which is good for the students and faculty. But, they conveniently forget that eventually that new infrastructure will have to be updated/refreshed/expanded in 3-5 years and no one budgets for that (or it gets cut again). So what happens? Its put in another bod, creating this vicious cycle of technology being in every bond.
Technology touches EVERYTHING in a district. Yes, these big tech companies want to sell the districts things, but its not some crazy backroom deal where its a big sham. Its great for my paycheck when districts pass these bonds, but if the district had the funds to do what they needed to in the first place, they'd be buying this stuff anyway. However, those purchases would be scheduled and rolled out over several years instead of waiting for a tipping point and buying it all at once.
Its a problem I don't really ever see being solved to be honest. As a salesperson, I'm out to make money, but I do what is best for my customers 100% of the time. I'm not a used carpet salesman. I've told customers not to buy things from me in the past, taking money out of my wallet. My customers trust me and know I have their best interest in mind, which means they keep coming back to me when they need things. That's more valuable to my paycheck than just trying to sell them things in the near-term. I only say that in an attempt to validate a lot of the above...I'm not just a sales guy trying to make a buck on ISD bonds. I love working with ISDs and seeing what they do for kids. I'd much rather them get the support they need rather than struggle and then have to HOPE a bond passes. I can't bring myself to vote for this bond, but I know the ramifications its going to have on the IT side of the house if it doesn't pass.
Sorry for rambling a bit, but maybe that provides some insight on the IT side of these bonds.
