WETHERSFIELD - A new Shared Services Committee has started looking into ways that town and Board of Education functions can be consolidated and it is starting with a focus on technology.

       The idea is to explore models for a combined technology department--a Town and Board hybrid--with the Board, which has a larger staff for that purpose, taking the lead. The Committee sat down in Town Manager Jeff Bridges’ office about three weeks ago to discuss the proposal.

       â€�"There are probably a number of areas that we can look to combine, but the Committee wants to look at technology first,” said Shared Services Committee Member and Town Councilor Jeff Kotkin later that week. â€�"The question is how can you have things run not only more efficiently, but with merging similar services between the Board of Education and the Town?”

       Not only more efficiently, but more cost effective. That was the objective that brought combining Town and Board services--an idea that had been floating around over halted discussions between the two sides--up during last year’s Council elections.

       Superintendent of Schools Michael Emmett, who was at the Committee meeting, expressed the same intentions during statements made at the Nov. 11 Board of Education meeting.

       â€�"It’s been one of my goals to make Information Technology (IT) more efficient on the Town and Board side,” Emmett said. â€�"We’re certainly looking forward to providing that service to the town.”

       During the budget session for the 2014-15 fiscal year, the Town put aside $538,538 for technology-or data services. The previous fiscal year saw $510,074 in related expenditures.

       The school technology budget has gone down--from $852,580 to $719,870--but is still much higher than what is being allocated to cover those functions on the Town side.

       The Town’s technology department only has three staff positions, one of which was vacated by the person retiring, Kotkin said.

       â€�"That’s one third of your department that’s gone,” he said. â€�"If you have a bigger staff, there are more people to cover for each other.”

       A bigger staff and one administrator--namely, a chief technology officer--to look beyond the day to day is what the Committee is thinking right now, Kotkin said.

       â€�"The focus on the Town side is doing the day-to-day,” he said. â€�"So you don’t have the ability to have somebody looking down the road at what we might need.”

       If the departments merge that way, the Committee does not anticipate shedding any positions in the process, according to Kotkin.

       â€�"We’re not doing this to eliminate positions,” Kotkin said. â€�"We’re doing it to have the Town and Board work off of each other.”

       It’s still early, and the Committee will be looking to examine shared services models in other towns as a part of its process. Members traveled to the Enfield school district to meet with administrators, and plan to report on details of the discussion when they reconvene. Other schools will be examined, but the Committee is starting with Enfield, according to Kotkin.

       â€�"If somebody’s done it and done it well, we don’t have to re-invent the wheel here,” he said.