School Budget Cuts

Florida's Public School Districts are facing major budget cuts for next year and beyond due to the fact that our economy is mostly dependent on sales tax and well, people just aren't in a vacationing or spending mood with the economy tanking.

I thought it might be fun to think of some ways the school systems could save money by following a Thrifty/Frugal Lifestyle. Here are a few ideas that have worked for my house:

1. Change the air conditioning filters. Just ask a teacher when the last time her's was changed. Dirty air filters are not good for the AC and it costs more money to run the AC when they are dirty.
2. Enforce setting the AC and Heater temps at a reasonable degree. Don't prop your door open when the AC is on. Isn't this just common sense?
3. Sell stuff that we aren't using. Hello, ebay?
4. Recycle. There is so much wasted paper! Reuse it. Sell those aluminum cans! Return ink cartridges.
5. Seek additional sources of income. Write some grants for educational stuff. Rent out our spaces during the weekends for community events.
6. Use coupons. Like if we buy our stuff from your company what will you throw in for free for our classrooms?
7. Have a public budget meeting once a month. Each month my husband and I get together and discuss our goals for the month, set our spending and savings amounts, and plan accordingly. How can the right hand know what the left hand is doing if you never tell us anything! Teachers have no clue what the school budget looks like. We just know that we don't get enough money for our classrooms. This year I had $125 to make it through the entire year to teach reading, social studies, and language arts to 80 kids.
8. Provide incentives. Substitutes cost a lot of money. Provides small trinkets to the people who don't miss work or the school that has the highest attendance rate.
9. Don't teach all the dogs all the tricks. When our household needs to learn a new skill, all 6 of us don't go take a class or workshop about it. One of us learns it and then teaches the rest. Ten teachers don't need to go to the same workshop. It's fun mind you, especially the lunch hour, but we don't need to all be there!
10. Cut the fat. If there is a real financial crisis then cut out everything that is non-essential for operating. If we were suddenly faced with a dire economic situation in our house I would cut out the cell phones, the directv, the dance classes, etc. Our school systems need to cut out things too! I'm thinking trips to the beach for conferences might need to be the first to go.