When you're working with limited funds in a school district, you need to look for new places where you can save money. Fortunately, there are many ways to trim costs without compromising the quality of a child's education. With some careful budgeting and creative solutions, you can continue providing a strong education to the children in your district.
When school funding is tight, the first step in answering how can schools save money is having a strong understanding of how school budgets are determined.
Then you need to take a close look at your budget. Before cutting programs or staff, review where every dollar comes from—and where it goes. A smarter budget process often uncovers hidden savings without sacrificing educational quality.
Here are four budget review actions that can uncover ways for schools to save money:
Audit Past Expenditures
Analyze spending over the past 2–3 years to identify trends and highlight areas of rapid cost growth. Flag any unused subscriptions, aging infrastructure costs, or duplicated services between schools.
Review Contracts
Look at vendor contracts for food, transportation, and maintenance. Are you overpaying? Consider procurement bundling with neighboring districts to negotiate lower rates.
Forecast Spending
Build flexible forecasts that account for fluctuations in state and federal funding. Use real-time financial dashboards from school finance software to spot issues before they become bigger problems.
Compare Across Schools
Benchmark cost per student across schools in the district. Look for disparities in spending or staffing models that may signal inefficiencies.
One of the most impactful ways to answer how schools can save money is by improving energy efficiency across facilities. According to ENERGY STAR, over 30% of energy used in K-12 schools is wasted—and low-cost improvements could reduce total consumption by approximately 10%.
Here are smart upgrades and practices to achieve substantial savings:
Track and audit energy use.
Use smart meters or utility dashboards to spot peak energy spikes and identify inefficient systems.
Adjust heating and cooling schedules.
Set thermostats lower during nights, weekends, and holiday breaks. Only run HVAC systems when buildings are occupied.
Install high-efficiency HVAC or geothermal systems.
Districts adopting geothermal heating and cooling systems—such as in New Bedford, MA—are projected to save about $300,000 annually in operating expenses.
Upgrade insulation, roofing, and windows.
These improvements reduce air leakage and heating/cooling demand, lowering overall energy bills.
Replace aging equipment with ENERGY STAR–rated models.
Switching to certified appliances, lighting, and vending machines delivers financial and environmental wins.
Engage staff and students in conservation.
Encourage culture shifts like turning off lights in empty rooms and powering down electronics after use.
Bundle contracts across the district.
Coordinate energy procurement regionally through procurement bundling to negotiate stronger utility pricing.
| System Type | Upfront Cost | Annual Energy Savings | ROI Timeline | Maintenance Needs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional HVAC | $3–7 per sq ft installation | Baseline – inefficient (≈ $1.50/sq ft operating cost) | N/A | Moderate to high |
| Geothermal Heating & Cooling | Higher initial cost | Operating cost ≈ $0.70/sq ft (~50% less) | 6–10 years (New Bedford ROI example) | Low |
| High‑Efficiency HVAC (Often Paired with Solar) | Varies; influenced by rebates/incentives | 20–40% reduction in district energy costs | 5–8 years | Low |
These estimates reflect real-world school district examples and industry benchmarks—highlighting that while geothermal and solar have higher upfront costs, the long-term savings and lower maintenance make them smart investments and soften strain on school budgets.
Adopting new ways to deliver instruction can be one of the smartest cost saving ideas for schools. Hybrid and online learning formats not only improve access and flexibility for students—they can also reduce overhead and resource costs for school districts.
Here’s how flexible learning models can help schools save:
Hybrid classrooms reduce facility strain.
When students alternate between in-person and remote days, schools can reduce energy use, lunch service demand, and custodial needs.
Online platforms lower material costs.
By digitizing handouts, tests, and readings, districts reduce the need for printing, paper, and physical storage—supporting a shift toward paperless administration.
Shared staffing models become possible.
Teachers can serve multiple classrooms or even schools virtually, helping districts cover specialty subjects or electives without hiring more full-time staff.
Scalable tools stretch budgets.
Investing in a strong Learning Management System (LMS) or virtual instruction platform pays off long-term by centralizing delivery and making it easier to scale across grade levels.
Potential for revenue generation.
Schools with strong online programs can extend their offerings to homeschoolers or neighboring districts for a fee—turning educational expertise into a funding stream.
Be sure to review your student attendance patterns and tech access before shifting formats. Even partial adoption of hybrid schedules can reduce costs and create scheduling flexibility.
While evaluating staffing needs can be a fraught process, it is important to do it if you have too many employees. On the front end, be open and transparent about your process. And be as gracious and thorough as possible.
Layoffs represent the most extreme course of action when you're exploring cost-cutting strategies for schools. While sometimes necessary in severely under-enrolled or underfunded districts, there are several steps school leaders should consider first.
Before moving forward with layoffs, explore these alternatives:
Understand what your layoff policies look like and make changes to help you retain your strongest teachers. Look at performance evaluations to determine who your weakest teachers are. And gather as much information as you can before making any decisions.
And evaluate administrators, too. Could you have one principal overseeing multiple schools? Do you need as many administrators as you have in place since they earn higher salaries?
Be wary of laying off teachers. In doing so, you may save money — but you'll raise doubts about the quality of your district's education. Make this a last-resort option.
Are your security guards, food service workers and bus drivers all hired by the district? You may be able to save money by outsourcing these responsibilities. Privatization can help you cut costs and run your district more efficiently. By hiring an outside company, you'll be able to gain expert service that could keep your district's costs lower.
Do you have a number of teachers approaching retirement age? If your budget is in a challenging spot, you may want to incentivize early retirement. Teachers can retire as early as age 55, but many may want to teach longer to ensure stronger retirement savings. Because more experienced teachers command higher salaries, they are expensive employees to keep on the payroll, however.
Consider offering cash or health coverage incentives to get your older teachers to retire early. In fact, San Diego offered early retirement packages to trim down costs due to huge budget shortages. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the results were strong with 965 applications, including 478 teachers, exceeding expectations by 27%.
As was the case with San Diego, offering a reduced salary and benefits was enough to entice teachers to take the money and run. You also could establish a rewards program so that teachers who announce retirement are awarded for doing so early.
Be sure to check the legal ramifications of what you're doing. Discuss options with your board and financial team, too. You need to plan these offers early so that you can save money by enacting them.
When considering staff reductions or benefit changes, it’s critical for school districts to make decisions grounded in data, equity and long-term impact. While cutting a salary and benefits package can generate short-term savings, it may also undermine morale, public trust and instructional quality.
National data show that on average, most of current school spending is directed to instruction and instruction-related services, with 79% of the money goin towards staff salaries and benefits. If your district's spending deviates significantly, it's time to explore other options first.
When making decisions, be sure to ask yourself:
Ultimately, answering how can school districts save money requires balancing budgetary needs against instructional integrity. Long-term stability—not short-term cuts—is the real goal.
With the average benefits package adding up to 30% of an employee's overall compensation, you know that organizations like school districts are paying a lot in benefits. Beyond the base salary, a district would be paying an additional $15,000 for a teacher making $50,000.
One of the more effective cost-cutting strategies for schools is to trim benefits packages. You don't want to erase the perks of working at your district, but you can make some key adjustments. As one option, you can increase deductibles in the health coverage plan that you offer.
If you offer additional health care coverage to retired employees, mandate that they've worked for your district for a longer period of time in order to receive it. Not only will this exclude some people from this big financial benefit, but it may encourage more allegiance to your district.
Create a system to confirm that your employees are present at work, too. When employees take advantage of the system, it means you'll need to hire more substitutes or temps to cover their areas. And that requires more money from the district.
With so many considerations, it is helpful to use a school management system and school finance software. You can track benefits costs, as well as analytics related to finances and payroll. You'll be able to catch small budgetary increases before they snowball into bigger issues.
When you manage your facilities and look for places to be more efficient, you can create cost-cutting strategies for schools. Are the schools in your district underused or unchecked? Then it's time to implement a game plan that will cut out the budgetary fluff.
For starters, assess the usage of your schools. Do you have a master plan? Before you make any rash decisions, work with your leadership team to determine the status of each building and how it will evolve going forward.
And are there warehouses or other facilities that are sitting idle? Sell off any property that isn't being used or lease it to a third party.
Look into renting your school buildings on the weekends, too. There may be a community organization that needs the space — and that will result in some revenue for your district. Make sure that you have documents in place so that renters know the expectations, fees and policies if there is any damage to the property.
When a new building goes up or another one is repaired, know how these facility changes fit into a master plan. Schedule routine checks on all heating and cooling systems, floors, windows and bathrooms. Assign staff in your district to complete minor repairs, such as painting, to save costs over hiring a painting service.
Maintenance staff should be trained to handle HVAC problems, plumbing issues and carpentry matters. Disperse maintenance staff across multiple buildings, too, so that the buildings with the most need always have someone ready to attend to a problem.
Looking for flexible and secure ticketing solution school district events? Check out our Online Ticket Sales for School Districts.
Sports, arts programming and student organizations all contribute significant costs to your school district. When you're looking into cost-cutting strategies for schools in your district, don't look away from these programs. Instead, implement tactics that can save money without eliminating offerings.
With your athletics events, establish a strong base of volunteers to help out at games. That way you won't need to rely on hired staff. To go a step further, help start a boosters program that can generate independent funds to support your athletic programs.
Don't jump on the uniform bandwagon and upgrade uniforms each season. Stretch the time between upgrades, and only buy the equipment that is essential for a given sport. Ask students what they already own.
Charge for tickets at games, and use a streamlined ticketing system powered by our school payment system for your athletics events. From basketball to baseball, you can save time and money by choosing an online platform. You won't need to hire people to staff ticket counters or deal with the clunkiness of cash transactions.
A thriving music program is a major draw for any school district. With that said, you need to keep tabs on costs for trips, concerts and other school events in your music program. You could even set up an online store to help offset costs and generate revenue.
And consider using an interdistrict loan program for supplies and materials that student organizations use. This way you won't be purchasing multiple sets of the same type of media in each school.
If you're living in a district with bussing, then you know that fuel costs can add up quickly. Transportation costs can gouge a district budget. And with fluctuating oil prices, it's difficult to know how much you should set aside in your budget for travel.
For employees going on field trips, enact a little more surveillance. Hands-on educational experiences such as trips to museums and monuments are a critical part of an educational experience. But they come at a cost.
Work with your educators to find out the necessity of the trip as well as places where they could trim costs. Ask them to go with brown bag lunches for students rather than meals at a restaurant. And require teachers to map out a budget for the trip that their supervisor will see.
Try using a computer program to determine the most effective bus routes so the vehicles don't amass a lot of excess miles. And consider using volunteer parents and community members as your bus drivers to save on wages.
Gather information on how often departments are making copies and understand the purpose of their reports. Could they just as easily be shared online? If they could, find ways to go paperless with department reports — and cinch in the expense limits for copies in each department.
Eliminate forms requiring supervisor signatures to save on paper and reduce red tape. And ask your employees to bring laptops and tablets to meetings rather than printouts of necessary documents. Restrict printing access at the school so only essential items are printed.
Send attachments on emails rather than cross-campus mail. Don't mail grades and other notices. And communicate with parents your rationale for eliminating paper waste in the district so they can help.
With tasks such as class registration, job applications and check requisitions, aim to go paperless in these areas, too. Make it easy for applicants to apply for positions through an online portal. And let guidance counselors work with students to complete class registration and provide access to grades.
By swapping slices of pizza for hummus and carrots, you can save money and provide your students with a more nutritious meal. Healthier students will be alert in class — and help your bottom line.
But contrary to common perceptions, the schools serving healthier lunches are doing as well if not better than those serving standard lunches. The healthier lunches, which are loaded with vegetables and whole grains, are an attractive option in a country with an obesity epidemic. In fact, some districts are even seeing a profit after making significant changes to their school lunch offerings.
The average school is shouldering thousands of dollars in lunch debt and that debt is expected to grow each year. Some districts are turning to donations and crowdfunding to get the money that they need. We outline some of those strategies and others that can help your school lower its student lunch debt in this guide.
We also built free school fundraising letter templates to help you create donation request messages.
You can also save money and improve students' lunchtime experience by using an online system to manage school lunch payments. By simplifying school lunch payments, you can give students an easy way to pay for their meals through an online system — and you'll help them get their food faster.
Download the complete school finance guide for free, which offers the strategies schools needs to keep a healthy budget.