Lower Makefield authorizes staff to pursue $232,000 server purchase after debate over redundancy and timing

Lower Makefield’s supervisors on June 3 authorized township staff to execute a purchase quote from ASK Technologies for a server and SAN system after extended technical and budget discussions about redundancy, memory configuration and procurement timing.

ASK Technologies founders Steve Parolei and Anthony Tada, assisted by technical lead Devon and vCIO Jose Maldonado, proposed a two-server Dell configuration with 1 TB of total RAM and a 60-month support plan. The full ASK quote presented to the board was approximately $232,000. ASK and township staff discussed alternatives (single-server option, different DIM configurations) and procurement channels (direct municipal purchase, Co-Stars, Sourcewell) to reduce cost.

"We're hoping to do it last year, but I don't believe it was in the budget at the end of last year," Jose Maldonado told the board, explaining that the township’s existing servers have no warranty or support and present a near-term failure risk. ASK warned that choosing fewer DIM modules (eight 64GB DIMMs vs. 16x32GB) would reduce immediate cost but degrade performance; the quoted difference was about $9,440 for the higher-DIM configuration.

Board members pressed for competition and fiscal prudence. Supervisor Grineer moved to authorize staff to execute ASK’s purchase quote but to change the configuration to eight 64GB DIMMs (reducing initial cost) and to require staff to seek two independent quotes for the same Dell configuration to confirm ASK offers the least-cost technically acceptable solution. The motion was seconded and carried with four votes in favor and one abstention/absence noted during roll-call voting.

Township staff and ASK also discussed financing options. Leasing (Dell financing) would raise the five-year cost, adding roughly $40,000 compared with an outright purchase, while available bond proceeds could fund an outright purchase without cutting other programs this fiscal year, staff said. ASK noted some quote components—especially memory and drives—were time-sensitive; the vendor said prices could change after the quote validity (June 8).

The board’s authorization is conditioned on staff confirming through two independent quotes that the ASK hardware price is market-competitive; if staff cannot do so, the matter will return to the board.

What happens next: Staff will check direct municipal pricing, Sourcewell/Co-Stars listings and Dell quotations, then report back before executing the ASK quote. The township intends to include five years of support in the purchase price and pursue cloud migration for nonpolice workloads over the coming 24 months to reduce on-premises load.