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Board discusses IT support options: hourly consultant, two-day retainer or internal hire
Summary
Board members and staff debated whether to continue hourly technical support, hire an external consultant two days per week, or develop internal capacity for networks and educational-technology needs. Administration will collect usage data to inform next steps.
District leaders and board members discussed technology support options for Mahomet-Seymour CUSD 3 at the April 22 meeting, weighing short-term external help against building internal capacity as curriculum and infrastructure needs grow.
Dr. Lee summarized options staff had explored after earlier discussions: continuing hourly on-call help, contracting a consultant for part-time weekly retainer days (two days per week was suggested) or hiring additional full-time staff. The district has recently used hourly support from an external consultant, Jared, when complex network or bandwidth issues arose during testing events.
Kyle (technology staff) and board members described incidents where access points were overloaded during the ACT and where rapid, higher-level network troubleshooting was needed. Administration said a two-day-per-week retainer would cost about $70,000 per year (a reported figure presented at the meeting) and could be used both for operational problem solving and mentoring technical staff; hourly work is billed at roughly $97 per hour.
Board members expressed differing views: some favored locking a consultant in for scheduled days to mentor staff and provide scheduled professional development; others preferred tracking current hourly usage and assessing whether a full-time hire or phased staffing plan would be more cost-effective. Several members stressed the district's long-term growth in devices and cybersecurity needs may eventually require dedicated staff roles that separate infrastructure/network responsibilities from educational-technology responsibilities.
Administration agreed to collect more granular usage and ticketing data, document recent consultant engagements and return with cost comparisons and recommended next steps for the board to consider at a future meeting.
Ending: Staff will provide an itemized summary of recent consultant hours, types of tasks addressed, and proposed staffing models for board review and follow-up.
