LOXLEY, Ala. — In a special meeting Wednesday afternoon at the Loxley satellite location, the Baldwin County Board of Education passed a motion to award local and long distance telephone service to Harbor Communications of Mobile for 36 months at a cost of $156,780.00 effective July 1, 2011.

The board also approved a recommendation to award web based e-mail hosting to CSI Technology Outfitters for a one year cost of $72,586.36 of which $58,030.00 is anticipated to be eligible for E-rate funding leaving a net cost of $36,607.76

District four board member Norm Moore conducted business as BOE Superintendent Alan Lee, Board President Tracy Roberts and member Angie Swiger were absent from the meeting.

CSI was the second lowest bidder while the lowest bidder did not meet a number of core requirements of the proposed solution including calendar management, meeting invitations and grammar check, according to board documents.

Funding for this project will come from the general fund (IT services’ budget) and E-rate (pending approval from E-rate).

Harbor Communications was the lowest bidder for services in the southern part of Baldwin County and according to the meeting agenda, “for E-rate funding, it was necessary to bid local and long distance telephone service for facilities in the southern part of the county. Facilities in the other part of the county will be served by AT &T using the ALJP contract.”

The other bidder was CenturyLink with a total bid of $184,504 for 36 months. Long distance charges for CenturyLink were six cents a minute while Harbor Communications offered a long distance bundle of 500 shared minutes for $2,000.

There were seven bids provided and three responded, according to board documents, with the third bid received being a “no”.

Board member Robert Callahan, Jr. expressed concern for spending this amount of money for an outdated analog system when high speed service was available for $1,000 a month to which Baldwin County Schools Instructional Technology Director Derek Roh responded, “ until we can phase out the old system completely we have to use what is available and to get the E-rate funding, we have to use this system.”

“if we don’t approve this bid, we could lose a potential $100,000 reimbursement from E-rate funding and it would be lost because tomorrow (Thursday) is the deadline for getting E-rate funding,” Roh said.

There are currently 14 schools on voice-over IP and there are four schools left to switch over, Roh said, and they are having to spend the money now to get the savings later. “You have to have the infrastructure and foundation to make better changes to the system later.”

in other board business, a motion was passed to approve the employment of Benjamin Blackmon as the Head football coach and Athletic Director of Gulf Shores High School. He is currently teaching at Greenville High School in Greenville, Alabama and will replace William Freeman.