Given the budget cuts from the Legislature, I figure we’ll see a lot more school districts hop on the bus, as it were.
This year, 10 Comal school district buses that deliver students to school and home also will be delivering a word from the district’s sponsors.
The full-color placards, promoting banking services, sandwiches and flooring, were unveiled Monday.Under a plan that initially will net the district around $2,100 a month, advertising space has been sold on the traditional yellow school buses. If ad space can be sold on each of the district’s 245 buses, said Transportation Director Gus Rodriguez, the district could pocket an extra $300,000 annually.
That’s a nice piece of change, and I hope they are able to get every penny of it. To put it in some perspective, however, Comal ISD had a budget of over $120 million for the 2010-2011 fiscal year, and was staring at an operating shortfall of $16.8 million for the 2011-2012 FY. In other words, this is a very limited solution. Indeed, this Fox Business story says that school bus ad revenue will be used to buy more school buses in Comal ISD. Point being, they’re not hiring any teachers or other staffers back based on this.
As we know, HISD approved a school bus ad program in May. I presume we’ll see them in force this fall. Other districts have been doing this for a couple of years now. It may not be a whole lot of money in the grand scheme of things, but I can’t think of a good reason why any school district would leave it on the table at this point.
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