As the Port Washington School District works on the 2013-14 budget in a struggling economy and in the face of state mandates, the school board is looking at creating new sources of revenue.
“As we go forward in tax cap challenge environment, we need to come up with a large amount of money from other sources than tax receipts,” said Alan Baer, a school board member, at Tuesday’s board meeting at Schreiber High School.
And while Baer gave credit to the fundraising capacities of local organizations such as the Port Washington Education Foundation and HSAs, “the reality is we need to find streams of hundreds of thousands dollars or face continued erosion,” he said.
Possibilities to consider include advertising around the turf field and naming rights, Baer said. Other ideas include approaching “graduates of Schreiber who have gone on to do wonderful, prosperous things,” and corporations that donate equipment, Baer noted.
Adding that they might not come forward, Baer noted that there are several local billionaires who might want to help. “It’s not going to hurt to have a group of people to put together a sustainable program where we court some of them,” he said, pointing out that “it wouldn’t take a lot” to “go a long way inside our seven buildings."
Baer expected to develop more ideas on creating new sources of revenue in the next month or so.
Watch the full webcast of Tuesday's school board meeting.
