<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; ">Hi Geoff,<DIV><SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>Welcome to the dilemma! A brief suggestion as to billing strategy, on a vendor basis: Something I do with a fair sized private school is a "per service" price. A service is defined as a tuning plus 20 minutes. If it is a major pitch change, that 20 minutes gets eaten up. If not, the 20 minute pieces get added up to use as needed, either for spot repairs, or for a half or full day recondition/regulation/whatever. In retrospect, I think 30 minutes or more would be a better proportion. But the bottom line is keeping it simple, and giving me some control over where to put my "extra" time. I charge my standard tuning price per service (i.e., the additional time is what amounts to a discount). But it certainly could be higher, with a larger "service" component.</DIV><DIV><SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>We have a generally agreed number of services per year, based on a calculation of 3 per year for piano in X use, 5 per year for Y use, 2 per year for Z, ignore W unless something comes up. (That's where we started, and then it turned out that the 8 pianos the administrator thought they had was 12. And then a few more were acquired. So the number of services per year had to get pared from the ideal we started with). Essentially, I have a budget of $3000 to handle 15 pianos. It's an acceptable situation for this particular case, mid/high school with a strong music program. $4000 for 40 pianos at a college isn't. But I started at UNM taking care of 65 pianos with a budget of $6000 20 years ago, more fool I <G>. It was on an hourly basis, so I had some theoretical discretion with my time, but really everything got eaten up in way too little tuning. (Now I'm half time, and the pianos have increased to 80. A LOT better, but by no means ideal.)</DIV><DIV><SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>I was frankly more embarrassed to be associated with the university during my first years here, due to to low level of maintenance. It _is_ a dilemma, all around. There are opportunities, but there are plenty of down sides as well. I'd say you are on the right track with your initial calculations, from the point of view of being realistic (read: they won't just laugh you out of the room for being hopelessly too expensive). Best of luck.<BR><DIV> <SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV>Regards,</DIV><DIV>Fred Sturm</DIV><DIV>University of New Mexico</DIV><DIV><A href="mailto:fssturm@unm.edu">fssturm@unm.edu</A></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"></SPAN></SPAN> </DIV><BR><DIV><DIV>On Feb 8, 2007, at 11:31 AM, Geoffrey Arnold wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: times new roman; font-size: 16px; ">I have already contacted some university employed technicians regarding my dilemma, but I thought I would offer it up here for any further insights you all might have.</SPAN><BR style="font-family: times new roman; font-size: 16px; "></SPAN></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR></DIV></BODY></HTML>