Published: October 17, 2009 08:57 pm      

Putting funds to good use

District 118 school district officials decided to go after a big piece of the economic stimulus money being handed out by the federal government. And their efforts will pay off for years to come in benefits to students.

At last week’s school board meeting, officials discussed how they planned to use $1.72 million in stimulus funds. Such money always comes with strings attached, but district officials have crafted a plan to help students, improve schools and — in the long run — save local taxpayers some money.

Part of the money will go to two of the district’s older elementary school buildings — Edison and Garfield. Both schools lack adequate wiring to make the best use of today’s technology.

Performing that remodeling, which is much more than just stringing wires along the floor, will help students learn and save local taxpayers the expense of the necessary upgrade. Some of the money also might go toward hiring another information technology specialist to ensure the district’s computers run at their optimum efficiency.

The district also landed a $1.8 million grant from federal Title I funds. That money will be used to buy new computers for both middle schools. Technology advances quickly. If machines are not kept up to date, new software programs become useless.

The Title I money also will pay for development of training programs for district teachers. That saves the district the expense of sending teachers elsewhere for such training and allows it to share the programs with more personnel.

School board members also agreed last week to give 11 buildings in the district — all buildings except the warehouse, which recently received extensive repairs — a thorough evaluation. The assessment will help board members and district officials set priorities on future remodeling projects and help ensure funds are spent on work where it is most needed.

It’s not uncommon to hear tales of stimulus money being used on impractical pork barrel projects that do little except allow politicians to brag.

District 118 officials and board members, however, appear to be putting the federal funds to use in the way they were intended — helping students and taxpayers at the same time.