Non-profit

Non-profit


Seventeen cents. Eighty three cents. It’s not been a fun week in the school business hereabouts. Buildings closing, classes and courses being dropped, a band that at one time marched over 200 members being eliminated, teachers losing their jobs, aides losing jobs, nurses resigning without being replaced……need I go on?
It’s all about finding ways to conserve money to keep the doors open as long as possible until more money can be brought in to the system to pay the bills.
Some have mentioned the fact that schools are not like businesses that operate to generate a profit. Which is true, but it is the only distinction that separates schools from businesses.
Marietta City Schools has in the neighborhood of 300 employees, 6 buildings for classes plus others for services, a fleet of buses, about 3,000 students and a budget of about $22 million per year. That’s a business.
At the end of the year we do not have to check the bottom line for profits and send the stockholders a dividend. But we do need to have enough money in the bank to meet the payroll and pay the bills until the next injection of money comes along.
Being not for profit does not absolve us of paying for fuel, electricity, books or any of the other things it takes to run the business. Even the employees would take a dim view of not being paid on the grounds we are not for profit. They, too, need funds to cover their expenses.
Picture one of those pie charts that divide up a dollar. In the school’s expense chart, 17cents of every dollar is non-employee related. Things like books, fuel, roof repairs, new buses, sports costs, virtually everything you can name that does not include the cost of an employee. A very thin slice of the pie.
The other 83 cents of the pie is directly tied to the cost of employees. Which only makes sense as schools are a service industry. People deliver the service. We really don’t have raw materials we buy and process to create a product. The knowledgeable student is our end product. That’s what the community invests in.
School boards are happy to learn of more efficient ways to operate. Even happier to learn of costs that can be reduced or eliminated. But the first question one must ask is, “Are we working on the 17 cents or the 83 cents?”
Admittedly sometimes it is both. As with dropping a band. You eliminate transportation and entry fees, but that’s just a tiny portion of the cost of operating a band. The associated salaries and insurances are the big costs.
Closing a building is often a savings move. But the real savings come in reducing the staff it takes to operate that building. The 83 cents. Never an easy decision.
As enrollments continue to hold steady or decline and expenses continue to rise owing to inflation, technology costs, raises, etc., it will be a challenge for schools to continue to find savings to maintain operations.
Schools have but one source of funds. The taxpayer. Whether money comes from the federal government, the state or local levies, the real source of funds to operate schools is the taxpayer. And he/she needs to feel they are getting value for the dollars they are giving.
For profit business has to deal with competition to stay in business. They have had to learn to be more efficient. Schools are not exempt. They, too, must learn how to be competitive in the marketplace and deliver the service more efficiently if they are to survive.