Public School Systems

[DGPEAKE@AOL.COM]

In a message dated 9/10/99 5:19:30 PM Pacific Daylight Time, avery@ev1.net 
writes:

<< List,
 
     I was asked today about a school system in the Houston area that wanted
 to start a program to have their pianos tuned and "repaired", i.e. whatever 
was
 needed. They're not looking necessarily for "cheap". They just want to know
 what would be reasonable.
     They have app. 250 pianos and they wanted to know if $12,000.00 a year 
was
 unreasonable. Of course, for that many pianos you can imagine what I said. 
 :-) Two
 tunings a year would be almost double that figure!
     But what "would" be reasonable, both for them and for the tuner? As far 
 as I'm
 concerned, $40.00 per piano, twice a year, would be rock bottom. Plus extra
 tunings for Christmas concerts and end of year concerts. Plus the cost of
 repairs/rebuilding work. But what would be a reasonable way for them to 
budget
 the cost of this type of thing? To decide how "much" money to budget?
     Any help/suggestions that I can pass on to them would be greatly 
 appreciated.
 I've tuned for school systems before, but never one of this magnitutude.
     Thanks for any help you can give.
 
 Avery
 
 Avery Todd, RPT
 University of Houston
 Houston, TX 
 
  >>

Figure how many pianos do you like to tune per year?  500?  That would be how 
many you tune for the school district at 250 pianos twice.  12K or even 24k 
would be low for a journeymans wage which you are entitled to earn.  Seems 
like it would be asking a lot of your time, especially if you are doing 
concert work as well.

Figure how much you like to earn each year, then see if you can make it by 
including the schools pianos.

You are right, it is a lot a pianos to bid on.  Hope these suggestions will 
help you.

Dave Peake, RPT
Portland Chapter
Oregon City, OR