By Elizabeth Reiss
Beacon reporter

A collections company is seeking more than $78,000 from the Baltic School District to pay for 50 laptop computers that the school ordered for its students and teachers last year.
Baltic Board of Education members and Superintendent Bob Sittig have said that the school district should not have to pay the entire amount for the computers and their warranties because Gateway and its professional business unit MPC are in breach of contract—they failed to complete the entire order and have not provided a warranty or services for the machines. Now school officials are going to try to negotiate a discounted price. They will determine a reasonable price at a Thursday meeting.
Baltic was one of 15 South Dakota school districts chosen to receive the Gateway laptops to begin the 2008-09 school year through the state’s Classroom Connections program. Baltic was supposed to receive a complete order of 175 computers, but only 50 were delivered to the school in September. Students and school officials waited weeks for the rest of the computers to arrive, but they never did. The Idaho company MPC filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 6.
“We kept expecting the rest of the computers to get here,” Superintendent Bob Sittig said. “We reached a point that it appeared we weren’t going to get them and decided we wanted to send the 50 back and get 175 new HP (Hewlett-Packard) ones.”
Sittig sent a letter to Gateway and MPC, telling them that the school district would be returning the computers. And then the school district found out it would likely have to keep them.
“I later found out that the letter was sent one week after the bankruptcy,” Sittig said. “It probably could have been settled, but once declared, it was all taken over by the bankruptcy court.”
The computers are usable, but they do not include an extended warranty or service agreement as promised by the contract.
“It comes down to asking, ‘what is the actual machine worth with no warranty?’ Sittig said.
Sittig said he is hopeful that a lower price can be worked out within a month.
If a lower price cannot be negotiated, the school district will take part in state action dealing with the issue. The state is representing other school districts in similar situations.
“My guess is that it would take longer that way,” Sittig said.
Middle and high school principal Jim Aisenbrey says the middle school students could use the 50 laptops. “We have 20-something laptops that the middle school uses right now, and they are at least six years old, beat up and need replacing,” he said. Students share those 20 computers, he said.