Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

[Michael S Czeiszperger <czei AT webperformanceinc.com>]

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On Wednesday 24 April 2002 12:09 pm, you wrote:
> That's real money, all right, but let me put that into perspective. This
> year, Wake County Schools are requesting $211,000,000 in local (county)
> funding. So, we're talking less than 1/2 of 1% of the local budget. In
> the context of our total operating budget, $750 million, it's almost
> insignificant.
>

I see your point about the overall school cost, but there are many ways to 
evaluate budgets. Wouldn't an IT Director that was able to reduce the IT 
budget by 10% gain a lot of positive attention? What if that person was then 
able to say "I can reduce the budgets of every IT department in the state" by 
the same amount? Wouldn't that add up to some compelling numbers?

> The point: the savings might not impact county resident's
> tax bill at all.
>
Yup, that would have to be researched.

> Even if all the funds spent on the M$ license were coming from local
> sources, they would only cover about 35 teachers.

Isn't 35 teachers enough to staff a school? I can't imagine that being able 
to 
say you'd saved enough money to complete staff a school isn't something that 
would turn heads.

I see your point about the overall percentages, but often change isn't based 
on overall affect, its based on perception, and right now there aren't many 
concrete examples of saving money in schools or governments. I may be way off 
base here, but my nose for news says that if one school district saved enough 
to hire 35 teachers, that story would be on every news channel in the 
country, with interviews on the nightly news, 60 minutes, you name it.

> One more example: the state has hardware and software standards for
> certain Workforce Development Education programs. Local schools offering
> those programs have to meet the state standard. Linux is not mentioned
> in those standards, and thus can't be used.
>

It sounds like there's a big lobbying job ahead for open source advocates. In 
terms of government use of open source, it may be easier to go for other 
entities like city and county governments.

- -- 
Michael Czeiszperger
Web Performance Inc.
Raleigh, NC
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