Before teachers, chambers of commerce, mayors, moms and local football boosters panic, it’s the consolidation of computers, software and other information technology services on the agenda. Gov. Mary Fallin mentioned her Open Range plan during the State of the State speech this week (seems like longer).
Basically, the plan, as presented by Fallin’s IT guru Alex Pettit, would allow school districts to voluntarily obtain their tech needs from the state. Pettit says this will save millions of dollars by driving a harder bargain with vendors and buying things in bulk.
Democratic Rep. Richard Morrissette doubts the savings would be as great as advertised. I asked Pettit about schools choosing not to buy from local businesses in favor of the state. He said since the plan is voluntary, they could still buy locally.
One issue that cropped up while I was doing research on the Open Range program is that Google doesn’t seem to know about it. I tried searching for the program using one word and two. I’ll be doing more searches on state programs to see how easy it is to find them.