More than once I've heard calls for the schools to be treated more like a business. If they were, ours might be eligible for a federal bailout, but they aren't.
Schools rely almost exclusively on tax revenue. Most of this comes from local real estate, and in the case of Nazareth, a high percent comes from residents.
Diversifying the revenue received lessens the burden on residents. So while we may not like certain types of business coming in, such as warehouses, they do increase corporate real estate, and theoretically would reduce the burden on residents.
Some schools are going beyond taxes and leveraging the consumer power of students and visibility of school property.
The March 9, 2009 issue of BrandWeek has an article titled, "Cities for Sale", which highlights ways in which municipalities and schools are trying to raise revenue during this recession by selling advertising space.
In the article, "busvertising" was discussed. Essentially a banner advertisement, like one would see on a bus in a city, would cover one side for a fee and an advertisement could be on the back for another fee. A company that provides the service in Texas claims that very quickly a district can get into the millions of dollars.
I'm not sure of that escalation for Nazareth, the article quotes ads at $350, considering two sides and back, $1050 per month, ten months, $10,500, times the number of buses - 30 guestimate $315,000.
The article also mentions renting roof space. Interesting item, and for Nazareth it might be possible as many flights coming into ABE fly over the town and the ads would be visible.
In reality, this is nothing new. Coca-Cola placed Powerade machines in Nazareth several years ago. Funds were often split between the distributor and different school organizations (such as booster clubs). Most of this in school advertising was "sports" related, the gym, football stadium, etc.
I also noticed that Domino's and Papa John Pizza get advertising every month in the school menu. I'm not sure what, if anything they pay, but my children know the brand from the menu.
Maybe this is too far fetched, but then again, coming late to the party could be costly.
What do you think? Should Nazareth start selling advertising space to pay off debt?
2 comments:
seems they already are, or at least trying...according to responses i have recv'd a marketing video has beeen distributed to sell naming rights of our new bldgs...if anyone has purchased i don't know but it hasn't been mentioned in the past board meetings...i joked the andretti auditorium had a nice ring to it and someone in admin replied they liked the sound of the martin guitar middle school...
If you believe that even one dollar from a broadened revenue stream would be used for tax relief, it might be worth considering. But we all know better than that, don't we?
No - we don't need to broaden revenue streams. We need to learn to live within our means. Freeze spending, take on the union as those brave directors in Saucon Valley have, reduce administration.
Look at the core of the problem. This, and all public school districts are simply bloated bureaucracies that exist to serve its employee constituencies and to feed the egos of those on the board. If we happen to get a little educating done in the process, we should be grateful.
This discussion - how to get more food for the monster - is the perfect illustration of the success of the public trough feeders and their enablers. They have moved the discussion from "Should we spend?" or "Can we afford it?" to "We are going to spend, period."
Every area of the private sector sees wage reductions, job eliminations, unprecedented expense controls. But in the public sector, such an approach is not even considered. It's just "Throw more money at the problem". After all, they are the entitled class.
Post a Comment