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BILLINGS – When Billings Public Schools decided to upgrade Internet connections, the district was able to fold costs into a larger $122 million bond passed in 2013 for a pair of new middle schools and renovations to existing schools.

Levies are often the only public funding for districts to upgrade technology, and costs fall back on local tax bases as schools try to keep pace with their peers across the state.

“It’s those taxpayers,” said Pam Meier, the principal of Arrowhead Elementary in Billings. “We give a lot of credit to them.”

Arrowhead was the first school in Billings to test out fiber Internet, a faster, more reliable system for delivering information.

“It seems like we are able to get lots of kids on technology at one time without having issues,” Meier said. The school has mobile iPad labs, and students had problems with overloading connections in the past.

The iPads are paid for through a district technology levy, one of a few categories of levies that schools can put up for a vote for extra local funding. Billings passed a K-8 technology levy in May 2013 separate from the $122 million bond. The technology levy brings in about $1.2 million each year.