moreland dollar
Community Suggestions

We asked you, the community, for your cost-saving ideas on ways to keep the high cost of running our school district down, and you have answered us!  The list below was updated on 1/8/08, with the the most recent idea submissions listed first and in bold font.

We would like to encourage you to keep thinking because all ideas are periodically submitted to the school board and the school district administration for their review.  Your input is especially important because we are about to enter the budget development time at UMSD. 

Below, please find all the suggestions that have been submitted thus far. Click here if you would like to share a cost-saving idea with us.

  1. Residents that live in UM  Twp. pay any school tax if they only rent their properties or apartments. If they do not, they should be required to pay tuition in order to attend our schools.
  2. Rent the football field out to the local Catholic high schools who don't have a stadium.
  3. Allow the sports team to fund raise and sell fan wear to raise money to help buy new equipment.
  4. Upon demolition of the Cold Spring school, bricks from the school may be sold to the public for a nominal cost. This was done at my former high school and raised a fair amount of money. Many cuurent and former students purchased the bricks as a keepsake.
  5. Keep all methods of communication (TV, e-mail, website) up-to-date.  Rather than sending home flyer after flyer, post them to the Internet and let those interested print them from there.
  6. Allow Middle School students to carry their report cards home to save on postage.
  7. Have state/local legislators provide an option for taxpayers to send their refund (state or local) to Upper Moreland Township School District.
  8. Reducing administrative costs.  Do we need two vice principals at the middle school and the high school?  We could be saving a lot of money, just in these salaries alone.
  9. Let local companies advertise on our athletic fields.
  10. Sell dvd copies of past sporting events, musical programs etc. Even old videos of championship games in the 70's and 80's if you have them.
  11. Why not allow local business's to advertise on channel 60?  Cheltenham does it on channel 42.
  12. Recycling of plastics and paper
  13. Coordinate paper recycling programs at every school.
  14. Rent our busses (with a driver) to other districts, public and private, when available for their functional needs.
  15. Conduct a wage study and pay administrators the appropropriate compensation for the size of the school district.
  16. Look into solar electric or a new device offered by GridPoint that will "store" electric, bought off peak time, for later use. Interesting ideas found at : www.gridpoint.com/solutions/government/ Article in Fortune Small Business magazine (May 2006).
  17. Yearly Calendars - only send them to the youngest or oldest in the families. We really only need one calendar with the school information on it. Then you can cut down on the number of calendars printed.
  18. I have noticed that St. Augustine's Roman Catholic Church in Bridgeport is raising money by utilizing a paper recycling bin. The bin states that it is a fund raiser. It also takes all kinds of paper - office paper- included. Could be a potential source of revenue for the school district.
  19. Let the student- run organizations have more say and freedom with their fundraisers so they have more options and more original ideas to raise money. This way they won't be as financially dependent on the district.
  20. Reduce the number of duplicate mailings/printings. With 3 children in the HS this year I will still get 3 copies of all print publication.
  21. Don't mail home library fine requests if less than the cost of postage.
  22. Computerize forms and have them interactive so we can save on paper and makes it quickerr and easier for the people taking care of all the forms.
  23. Investigate the potential savings of eliminating pensions for all new hires in favor of a 401K plan & social security retirement plan such as the State of Alaska put in place this year.
  24. Consolidate all county school boards/districts into one country wide unit to eliminate duplicity.
  25. Eliminate bus transportation to private schools and limit transportation to UM schoold district only.
  26. Start thinking outside of the box!
  27. Wednesday folders should only go to one sibling.
  28. Charge a rental fee for organizations (not connected with the school) for use of school property. For instance, fields, classrooms, gym, auditorium.
  29. Provide each FAMILY with a school district calendar instead of each STUDENT. If additional copies are requested, they should be sold at cost.