Funding

By Carmen Gioiosa

One major obstacle education always encounters is funding. Unfortunately, the major reason for the lack of school resources or the disparity is due to the way public education is funded—local property taxes. Therefore, it is incumbent upon schools and districts to secure additional funding. Discussed below are four options schools and districts can exercise in bridging their funding gaps or financing new opportunities, such as technology once a technology plan has been finalized.

The first option is buying bonds, long-term or serial bonds. Traditionally long-term bonds have been used to finance capital improvement projects such as building schools; however, a small amount of the funding may be earmarked for smaller purchases such as technology purchases or improvements. Yet, using long-term bonds for technology purchases is problematic given the short-lived nature of technology; it seems unfair and impractical to ask taxpayers to pay for products that are no longer in use at the expiration of the bond. On the other hand, a cost sometimes overlooked when technology is discussed is professional development. According to a report prepared for the United States Department of Education in 1997, schools or districts should estimate 30% of the total expenditure for professional development costs. This cost is not short-lived as skills learned by teachers will be embedded and refined in the school curriculum for many years and serve as a springboard for future learning. Serial bonds, on the other hand, make more sense for technology purchases given their flexibility in maturity dates and regularity in the amount to be repaid yearly. However, challenges to bond referendums are not uncommon, particularly during economic hard times, other pressing community priorities, or when the cost seems exuberant. Campaigning the needs of the technology proposal in the community prior to the bond election is one way of increasing awareness. Another way is to negotiate a pilot program of your technology proposal with plausible vendor/s. Setting up a pilot program allows either the school or district an opportunity to “test out” the equipment or software and showcase its use to the community prior to a bond election (Pelavin Research Institute, 1997).

A second option for schools or districts is to lease technology equipment as they qualify for tax-exempt leasing. Leasing is an attractive alternative for various reasons: (1) technology purchased can be bundled with maintenance, software, and installation; (2) usually funded by a school or district’s operating budget and therefore preserves capital dollars; (3) limits school or district’s debt; (4) flexibility in the payments with usually lower interest rates; (4) does not require a referendum; (5) technology updates at the end of each lease period; and (6) bulk pricing may apply (Pelavin Research Institute, 1997.)

Two considerations to keep in mind, though, are providing funding for professional development opportunities and not owning hardware or software at the end of the lease period.

A third option is creative funding. A tried and tested approach is fundraising campaigns. Whether it is through an old fashion candy sale or magazine subscriptions to grocery stores or credit card companies donating a portion of the sale or transaction to a school or district, fundraising comes in many forms. Another solution is to solicit donations from companies or individuals. Donations can provide attractive tax incentives for companies or individuals if schools partner with education foundations, for example. Last, but not least, schools or districts can reconsider personnel or professional development costs. One possibility is to encourage staff members to enroll in technology based professional development outside the district. Another is to increase student-teacher ratio and incorporate teacher assistants as a cost savings mechanism (Pelavin Research Institute, 1997.)

A fourth, but not final option, is to apply for grants. Grants are available from both branches of government, philanthropies, corporations, or private endowments, to name a few sources (USDOE, 1997). The downside to this option is that the grant writing process can be labor intensive and also time consuming, but may at times come with “strings attached” (Ibid.)

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