BUTLER TWP — Butler County Community College will ask for $300,000 from the state to help fund installation of new IT infrastructure, which it needs to update to provide the new nursing facility with internet connectivity.
The estimated cost of the project is $600,000.
Jim Hrabosky, vice president for administration and finance at BC3, said at a Wednesday, March 15 meeting of the council of trustees that the college has sufficient hardware but needs new software.
“We’re trying to be somewhat creative in trying to see how the state can fund possibly some of our software commitments,” Hrabosky said. “For a long time our college had to invest more in hardware servers and networks, and a lot of agreements are now going to the cloud.”
Additionally, the college’s routers and switches have been in place for about 10 years, and many need to be replaced. The installation of new infrastructure would extend internet access to the Victor K. Phillips Nursing and Allied Health Building, which will house the Shaffer School of Nursing and Allied Health when completed later this year.
“We had to extend our spiderweb when building the nursing facility to make sure it gets internet service so our staff can have access via their desktops,” Hrabosky said after the meeting.
The trustees unanimously agreed to apply for funding through the Pennsylvania Department of Education. Hrabosky said work could begin this summer if the college’s application is approved in May or June.
Hrabosky also commented that the college applied for and received money last year to purchase furniture and technology for its Armstrong campus, which was in the early stages of construction at the time.
