A computer-based education technology program has many components, as figure 1 shows, which range from the computer hardware and software to the maintenance and technical support needed to keep the system running. Our work focused on funding for school technology. Districts Used a Variety of Funding Sources

Each of the districts we visited used a combination of funding sources to support technology in its schools (see table 1). Finally, districts obtained private grants and solicited contributions from businesses. Such funding constituted about 3 percent or less of their technology funding. Four Types of Funding Barriers Most Common

Officials in the districts we visited identified a variety of barriers to obtaining technology funding. Four types of barriers were common to most districts and considered by some to be especially significant. Competing Needs

Officials in all of the districts we visited reported that district-level funding was difficult to obtain for technology because it was just one of many important needs that competed for limited district resources. Community Tax Resistance

Officials from all districts said that resistance to higher taxes affected their ability to increase district operating revenue to help meet their technology goals. Lack of Fund-Raising Staff

Many officials reported that they did not have the time to search for technology funding in addition to performing their other job responsibilities. Roswell, for example, set up a model technology school and used it to demonstrate the use of technology in school classrooms. Staff-Related Components Difficult to Fund

Nearly all districts reported maintenance, technical support, and training— components often dependent on staff—as more difficult to fund than other components. Officials in Roswell and Seattle noted that special levy and bond monies, their main sources of technology funds, could not be used to support staff because the funds were restricted to capital expenditures. Districts Plan to Use Same Funding Sources for Ongoing Costs

and (2) periodic costs of upgrading and replacing hardware, software, and infrastructure to sustain programs. They also suggested ways to accomplish this. To develop support for technology, leaders in these five school districts used a broad informational approach to educate the community, and they formed local partnerships with business. Lack of staff for seeking and applying for funding and the difficulty of funding technology support staff were major concerns of officials in all the districts we studied. The technology program in each of the five districts we visited had not yet secured a clearly defined and relatively stable funding source, such as a line item in the operating budget or a part of the state’s education funding formula.
Why GAO Did This Study

GAO discussed how school districts obtain funds for the acquisition of education technology, focusing on: (1) sources of funding school districts have used to develop and fund their technology programs; (2) barriers districts have faced in funding the technology goals they set, and how they attempted to deal with these barriers; (3) components of districts' technology programs that have been the most difficult to fund, and what the consequences have been; and (4) districts' plans to deal with the ongoing costs of the technology they have acquired.

What GAO Found

GAO noted that: (1) the five districts it studied used a variety of ways to fund their technology programs; (2) four types of barriers seemed to be common to several districts: (a) technology was just one of a number of competing needs and priorities, such as upkeep of school buildings; (b) local community resistance to higher taxes limited districts' ability to raise more revenue; (c) officials said they did not have enough staff for fund-raising efforts and therefore had difficulty obtaining grants and funding from other sources such as business; and (d) some funding sources had restrictive conditions or requirements that made funding difficult to obtain; (3) to overcome these barriers, officials reported that their districts used a variety of methods to educate and inform the school board and the community about the value of technology; (4) these ranged from presentations to parent groups to the establishment of a model program at one school to showcase the value of technology; (5) the parts of the technology program that were hardest to fund, according to those GAO interviewed, were components such as maintenance, training, and technical support, which depend heavily on staff positions; (6) for example, in two locations special levy and bond funding could be used only for capital expenditures--not for staff; (7) in several districts GAO visited, officials said that staffing shortfalls in maintenance and technical support had resulted in large workloads for existing staff and in maintenance backlogs; (8) most said this resulted in reduced computer use because computers were out of service; and (9) as these districts looked to the future to support the ongoing and periodic costs of their technology programs, they typically planned to continue using a variety of funding sources despite uncertainties associated with many of these sources.