Advertising Possibilities for Verona Schools

The Verona school board is considering the possibility of getting into the advertising business as a way of helping to deal with the spending and budget cuts that are being made. The question of whether or not the school board should get involved with advertising was the topic of discussion at Tuesday’s group meeting, which is when the Superintendent of the Schools, Steven Forte, showed his support for earning revenue in exchange for displaying advertisements within school grounds, including the ball fields and on the school district website. The current school budget is quite shaky, especially since a number of costs have come up early on in the year and many are concerned, including the Board Vice President, Joseph Bellino.

Thousands of dollars are being put toward the lower field of the high school for both football games and marching band practice. There have been a number of safety concerned that are being addressed as well and field repairs need to take place but such repairs are quite costly. The Verona school district, according to Bellino, is dealing with far more bills than it originally expected and is now struggling because of this. Bellino said, “We’re still in the black … but the well is almost dry.” At this point in time, the unforeseen costs were covered by other sources of revenue but there is not much money left for the whole rest of the school year. Forte said, “We can’t take big strides forward with these budgetary constraints.”

The superintendent had set up a number of different goals, which included raising enough money in revenue from a number of different programs and sources which would ultimately help to support the school district for the rest of the year. The school board did approve the list of goals that Forte created earlier on in the week. A consulting company has already came up with its own proposal for different advertising possibilities for the school district but some money would be necessary for the project to even take place. Forte has been looking at a different company that could handle the aspects of advertising, which would take place on the school districts website without the district having to pay any money upfront. With this opportunity, Verona would be able to earn a total of around 70 percent of the revenue from the advertisements. Forte said, “I’m not saying this is a solution to all of our [budget] problems, but it starts to add up.” He also said, “If it’s $20,000, that’s could be $20,000 in computers or $20,000 in books that we didn’t have before.”

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