Issue Position: School Funding

Issue Position

By facilitating "out of the box" thinking on alternative revenue streams. While a member of the Board of Education, and facing back-to-back years of decreased funding, I floated the idea of generating revenue by allowing advertisements on school buses. My thoughts were that advertisements are in every metro bus, every subway station, and every train. By allowing this, millions of dollars in "alternative revenue" could be raised. Unfortunately, because of the current laws, our school system can only derive its funding from federal, state, and county sources.

Here is the potential: The House staff analysis says in Colorado, one of the states that allow exterior advertising, only 10 districts have chosen to put commercial messages on their buses. It's estimated they raise $5,000 to $10,000 per bus annually. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/12/23/florida-lawmakers-considering-allowing-school-bus-advertisements/

PGCPS has a school bus fleet of 1,250 buses. Based on the conservative number above this equates to $6,250,000. Yes, there would have to be restrictions on the advertising for alcoholic beverages, tobacco products, prescription drugs, political ads, and material that's inappropriate, offensive or insensitive to children or the community, but a little thinking "outside of the box" could go a long way.

I proposed this in 2007 as a means to mitigate school funding reductions caused by the lack of action on the part of our legislators in District 23B to ensure our county got its "fair share". I will push for our school system to have the flexibility to generate additional sources of revenue.

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