Official: City schools IT department vastly overwhelmed

Charlottesville schools have plenty of computers, but not enough people to fix them.

Ed Gillaspie, director of finance for Charlottesville City Schools, said a school division should have a minimum ratio of one technician for every 250 computers, based on national standards. But with the amount of staff Charlot-tesville has, that number is one to 875.
“We’re just not able to keep up,” Gillaspie said in an interview.
School Board members received a proposal during their Thursday work session to hire one more technical support employee to address the rising number of technical service requests.

Currently the school system has three technical support staff, and service requests have averaged about 24 per day since school began on Aug. 20. Gillaspie said the division last added a position in 2005. Since then, 2,500 new pieces of equipment — from computers to digital chalk boards — have been added, with laptops accounting for nearly half that number. And due to the combination of continuing service requests coupled with the need to install new equipment, Gillaspie said current staff is simply not able to handle the workload.
“You can only take your attention and spend it in so many places,” he said.
School board members were generally in agreement about adding the new position.

“It definitely sounds like we’ve been hitting the ceiling for a while,” said board member Colette Blount.
The position, which requires $67,000 out of the fiscal 2009 budget, is budget neutral because revenue from other sources — such as savings from staff turnover and unfilled positions — compensate for the costs, Gillaspie said.

But board members acknowledged that adjusting the budget has its risks, especially given the current economic climate. The potential staff change comes on the heels of Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s announcement that state agencies may be required to cut their budgets by as much as 15 percent.
Gillaspie said it is unlikely that more staff would be hired to fully alleviate the issue.

“It’s going to be an issue we’ll continue to struggle with,” he said.
The board will take action on the item during its next meeting on Sept. 18.