August 2, 2002
Minutes
Attendees: Kyle Davie, Mike Shaughnessy, Katie Miller, Bill Fiske, Jim Halley, Sharon Hussey
Year End Budget Review
Year-end forecasted and actual budget results for FY2002 were presented.
Comments included:
· increased revenue from direct access related to increasing bandwidth needs of districts,
· elimination of the RIDE content fund as OSHEAN vacates the OC12,
· increase of $12,000 for health added to Personnel Costs reflecting addition of one employee and additional costs due to leaving SORICO group plan
· decrease in I1 and I2 costs and need for additional backup bandwidth
FY2003 proposed budget amounts were presented.
Comments included:
· need for clarification of actual maintenance contracts to reflect those contracts paid for through other sources.
Members approved the FY2003 budget, but asked for correction to maintenance expense as noted above and personnel expense (discussion below).
FY 2001 Audit report
Auditor’s comments were reviewed and filed. Check signing issue and specifications for pension plan will be investigated further with Aronson.
Financial Position statement was reviewed and filed.
New Business
New Salary Ranges for FY2003
New salary ranges reflecting a 3% increase were approved.
Percentage Increase for Merit Pool
After lengthy discussion, it was decided to use the current policy, which allows the Executive Director to increase an employee’s compensation annually at the anniversary of the hire date by making a recommendation to the Executive Committee for approval. In lieu of a specifically defined merit percentage, the ED will use the salary ranges and the approved personnel budget to recommend employee pay increases. To provide accuracy in projecting the budget needed to cover these salary increases, Sharon will break out the salary costs reflected in personnel expense in the projected budget
Vision Statement
The vision statement developed by the Board members at the Strategic Planning meeting was accepted. It reads:
RINET is the comprehensive service provider of proven, leading edge, high-quality technology facilitating information services without borders for every member of the RI K-12 educational community. RINET is a center for the development of collaborations, partnerships, and technologies that create scalable and economical solutions enabling educational and community excellence.
Completing the Strategic Plan
The process for completing the strategic plan developed by the Board Governance Committee was presented. Members volunteered for subgroups to complete objectives for defined goals as follows:
1. Professional Development - Support the successful integration of technology into the K-16 environment. – co-leaders, Peter Adamy, Jim Monti
2. Expand partnerships and collaborations to foster ‘educational excellence’/Foster collaborative relationships between RINET’s constituents to positively impact K-12 education – leader, (waiting for a volunteer)
3. Develop new programs and services to meet existing and emerging needs for technology solutions/Evolve services to meet current customer demands while providing leadership and services. – leader, Bill Fiske. Mike Shaughnessy, Kyle Davie, Jim Halley
4. Marketing - Improve constituents’ knowledge and understanding of RINET’s programs and services to create brand awareness and brand loyalty. – leader - Sharon Hussey, Jim Halley
5. Expand market base and funding sources to connect and strengthen the K-12 community. – this will become part of other goals.
Members not present at this meeting are urged to select a subgroup and respond electronically to the RINET Board list so we can finish this important work-in-progress. We are aiming for a minimum of three members for each objective.
We had planned to complete the objectives for approval at the August business meeting and to complete the remainder of the sections by the end of September. Because of vacations and summer professional development activities, this timetable proved infeasible, but we should be able to finish this quickly once the subgroups are defined and working. Sections I through VII will lend themselves nicely to a brochure format for general publicity, and the entire document including appendices will be used primarily internally as a roadmap for accomplishing the strategic plan.
Migration of Payroll Processing
Health Benefits are being worked on through direct coverage with Blue Cross with RINET employees receiving the same health coverage as SORICO group plan provided.
Difference in cost is approximately $12K. Some of this amount reflects addition of one employee who had deferred health coverage previously. The delta reflects the additional cost associated with a small group.
TIAA-CREF – we are set up as our own account, we shouldn’t have any disruption
Life Insurance – we are looking into and should have it by the end of the month
LDAP Pilot
The three districts are
confirmed to pilot. All district data has been loaded into the database.
All fields have been added
except Professional Identifier fields. Professional Identifier field values
from the Teacher Certification Database have proved to be a good starting point
but may be too esoteric for the general use database (i.e., in some cases the
level of detail is too deep or is tied to certification and not to actual
assignment). These values (which must be selectable from a drop-down men in
order to be searchable) will need to be further developed during the pilot.
Creation of preferred e-mail addresses (“personalized e-mail address”):
Screens to select preferred email addresses (alias/personalized addresses) are complete. Documentation for the screens is under development.
Training Plan:
Documentation – in progress
RITTI Help Desk staff will be included.
District WAN Monitoring and Management
With the T3 technology RINET can now monitor the status of internal connections within a cloud. Specifically:
Bandwidth usage per school within a cloud
Bandwidth usage to RINET (internet access)
Up / Down status in real time
Email notifications of Up / Down status can be sent to technology coordinator of the district.
Software has the ability to be web based so districts can view this information themselves. (RINET will need to upgrade the software to be web based)
Joe is working on a price structure pending a trouble ticket report from Verizon.
Proposal for Municipal Solutions
Because municipal buildings are increasingly turning to their school networks for access, and because doing so is in conflict with SLD policies for eligibility for subsidized lines, RINET will create a municipal network modeled on the school networks, existing parallel to but separate from the school networks. To accomplish this RINET will purchase a T3 line and a head end router. RINET will also purchase the lines to connect the municipal buildings to RINET. New customers will be charged for both the line and the bandwidth required to provide the service. A pricing algorithm is being developed.
Status of
OLAP_ETL_SIS Services and RINET
Met with Superintendents on Wednesday.
Joe Pangborn presented information we had received from the BOCES
suggesting we further investigate the implementation based on more information
from the districts and from others with experience in this type of
implementation.
We will have a preparatory meeting later this
month with the Superintendents to further plan and analyze their needs and
expectations.
We expect to get two things from that
meeting:
Real cost of ownership for each district to implement their own
List of questions and concerns for September
meeting with representatives from the BOCES
Agenda
planning for Worksession Meetings -Deferred
to be developed electronically.
Meeting adjourned at 11:30am.