Alders Sign Off On $322K HR Contract

The Board of Alders unanimously signed off on a four-year, $322,142 human resources software contract that the Board of Education claims will improve the school system’s recruitment of Black teachers and will streamline the onboarding of new employees.

Local legislators voted in support of that contract Monday night during their latest bimonthly full board meeting, which was held online via Zoom and YouTube Live and was the board’s first meeting of 2021.

Alders unanimously granted final approval for a new contract between the city’s Board of Education and Frontline Technologies Group LLC that extends from Oct. 1, 2020 through June 30, 2024.

A fiscal impact statement submitted to the alders by New Haven Public Schools Chief Financial Officer Phillip Penn states that the four-year deal will cost a total of $322,142, and will be funded by the city school system’s Alliance Grant.

“This request from the Board of Education is to update the agreement with Frontline Technologies Group by adding a new module for the Human Resources Department,” Edgewood Alder and Finance Committee Chair Evette Hamilton said Monday night as she urged her colleagues to vote in support.

“This upgrade will streamline the processing for new employees and support more proactive identification of qualified candidates for teaching positions.”

During a December Finance Committee public hearing, Penn argued that the new contract and module access will allow the school system to reduce the amount of physical paper it uses after hiring new employees by converting the onboarding process to an electronic system.

He also said that the new agreement will allow the school system to search among ​“several million” teachers nationwide who have registered profiles in the AppliTrack system.

That should allow NHPS to target minority teacher hires by looking at prospective teachers who have graduated from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), he said.