budgets

Faced with a self-imposed Friday deadline for picking two schools to shutter, the Richmond School Board opted instead to put off the cost-cutting measure.

Riverside County (Calif.) supervisors authorized the sale of $21 million in bonds by the Coachella Valley Unified School District to support districtwide technology upgrades and supply every student with an Apple iPad.

Madison School District property taxes for 2013 could increase 7.4 percent under budget recommendations being presented Monday to the Madison School Board.

In October, the Florida Department of Education requested more than $400 million for digital learning in its annual budget request submitted to state lawmakers. The money was needed to buy computers and upgrade public schools' bandwidth and wireless access, it said. But now department officials say they can make do with just $100 million for next year.

The Kutztown (Pa.) School Board approved a $171,500 technology infrastructure upgrade. "The vision is to provide reliable and current resources," said Dr. Christopher Harrington, director of Bridges Virtual Education School.

Muskegon (Mich.) Public Schools is turning its financial operations over to the Muskegon Area Intermediate School District, a move officials said isn’t directly related to the district’s budget deficit but one that will help address the deficit.

Top elected officials in Wake County, N.C. have agreed to support a school construction program of around $911 million that could cost the average homeowner roughly $135 more per year in property taxes.

The Janesville (Wis.) School District is looking to boost its digital technology to improve student achievement, but providing a device to every student is not in the cards, at least not yet. The technology improvement plan includes upgrades of existing classroom computers and purchases of more smart boards, with a goal of one smart board in every classroom within two years.

Baltimore County would add classrooms for thousands of students under a budget proposal unveiled Monday by County Executive Kevin Kamenetz — a plan advocates hope signals a commitment to solve the overcrowding that has plagued the school system.

District IT leaders are prioritizing BYOD, assessment readiness, and broadband access for their schools, despite that 80 percent predict flat or declining IT budgets for the upcoming year, according to the Consortium for School Networking’s (CoSN) first-of-its-kind National IT Leadership Survey.