By JAMES BELL
Hays Post

The Hays USD 489 Board of Education discussed technology upgrades for administration and heating and air conditioning systems at Monday’s work session and now will vote on the two issues at next week’s board meeting.

The board heard from Scott Summers, director of technology, about the proposed computer purchases.

“At Rockwell we’ve started experiencing issues,” he said, speaking on the need to replacing aging systems.

“It was a little more than I wanted with the laptops,” Summers said, but in order to make the systems work efficiently the purchase is necessary.

The upgraded systems will “make them future-proof.”

In all, the board will vote on a purchase of 28 Dell laptops at $823.93 each and 17 desktops at $646.17 each, with system upgrades totaling $41,211.

At that price, the district is remains under the technology purchase budget for the year.

The board also heard from Rusty Lindsay, director of buildings and grounds, about the second round of bids for the Hays Middle School HVAC system.

After earlier rejecting the sole bid, the district opened the bids again with different requirements.

The administration is now recommending to the board a bid from Glassman Corp. for the project at $1,360,085.34 to replace the HVAC system.

It was the lower of the two new bids on the project.

The board will vote on that measure at next Monday’s meeting, as well.