Despite being less than 10 years old, the audio-visual equipment inside of the Manteca Unified School District’s board chambers is so antiquated that it requires a complete rebuild every time a meeting is held.
And after the board denied a request for proposal that would have cost the district $116,591 to completely renovate and overhaul the existing system, the board came back on Tuesday and agreed to spend $87,410 for a stripped down proposal that will still accomplish the same task.
According to the proposal, the items that were stripped out included an 80-inch display monitor and a pair of 60-inch display monitors as well as a new camera system that would allow for better visual recordings of the meetings.
But additional purchases will need to be made in addition to the new equipment that will be installed since according to the district, existing equipment like the monitors that are positioned in front of every board member won’t be able to communicate with the new system once it is place – requiring a complete replacement and reconfiguration of the dais.
In order to save money, a large portion of the work will be completed by the district’s Information Technology department rather than an outsourced vendor.
Not everybody was on board with the amount of money that would be needed to make the project a reality.
Nancy Teicheira, who cast the lone dissenting vote in the matter, wanted to know how much it would cost to just perform the necessary work to the server that was initially identified as the problem. According to staff, once that server is replaced then the components that are connected to it would also need to be upgraded since they’re not currently compatible with what was being proposed.
The company that will be tapped to furnish the equipment, Comp View, submitted their bid back in December of 2015 and presentations from the two vendors were hosted back in February.
It wasn’t until Aug. 9 that the board formally considered the proposals for the project.
Once the work is completed, Manteca Unified’s new student board member – who will some limited voting powers from the position – will be reconfigured on the dais so that she’ll be able to participate better in discussions that are being held. The way that things are currently setup now leaves her on the edge of the dais between the district IT Director and the lectern where the public addresses the board.
Technically the board chambers are comprised of four different conference rooms that can be separated into clusters to better suit the needs of the district at that time. With this new system, each of them will be able to operate independently of one another, or together as a one large system to suit a much bigger audience like the ones that show up for board meetings every month.