by Mike Chaiken | The Bristol Edition | March 13, 2026 |
Although the Board of Finance voted to buy 1,000 Chromebooks for the Board of Education at recent meeting, the panel re-did its motion at a special meeting on Tuesday.
The panel unanimously approved “a motion to ratify the vote of the February 26, 2026 Board of Finance meeting to transfer $256,000 from the general fund contingency account to the Equipment Building Sinking Fund for the Board of Education to purchase Chromebooks in the current year and recommended this approval to a joint, this action to a joint meeting of the City Council and Board appointments.”
The decision to make the purchase of the Chromebooks occurred after the finance board discussed the information technology budget for the coming fiscal year. Members were told that due to the increased focus on supplying memory chips to artificial intelligence, technology purchases are likely to skyrocket in cost.
Jeffrey Telke, director of technology for the Bristol Public Schools, told the finance board he had access to purchase Chromebooks now for a cost of $256 instead of the possible $300-$400 budgeted for in the upcoming budget. The costs were lower since the items were one year old and Chromebooks only have an eight-year lifespan. Telke said the schools have a plan to cycle out the oldest Chromebooks from circulation before they fail.
“Just to refresh,” said finance board chair David Maikowski, “we talked about this the last meeting and it’s just a little sloppy. It wasn’t pretty as far as getting this voted through… We just wanted to kind of clean this up… Even though we did it right, we just want to make sure we do it again.”
By buying the Chromebooks now, the Board of Education will reduce its FY27 budget by $350,000.
The finance board also unanimously approved several motions for the Parks, Recreation, Youth and Community Services department. It approved an additional appropriation of $600,000 and a transfer of $368,295 within the Capital Projects Fund for Page Park Revitalization; the appropriation of an additional $600,000 for the revitalization of Page Park; and resolution authorizing the issuance of bonds or notes in the aggregate amount of $10,650,000 to finance the appropriation for the revitalization of Page Park.
Josh Medeiros, superintendent for the department, said the money is for the ongoing multi-year revitalization project for Page Park.
“There is currently $10,050,000 appropriated to date… The request for next year was $9.5 million. To complete that project, the total project cost was going to be $19 million,” said Medeiros, “To continue with this next phase of the project, there are insufficient funds within the account. But overall, with what’s requested for next year for the capital budget that will be appropriated July 1, and this transfer appropriation tonight, we’ll get to continue with the project now.”
Without the $600,000, Medeiros said the work would have to wait till July 1 to begin “which would put us behind the construction season.” With the funds, he said, “We can break ground in the spring.”
Mike Chaiken is the editor of CTFashionMag.com and was the longtime editor of the Bristol Observer.
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