Date: Fri 10-May-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: STEVEB

Quick Words:

schools-phone-costs

Full Text:

School System Tries To Trim Its Phone Bills

The Newtown school system may manage to save nearly $28,000 on its phone bill

this year simply by fine tuning the system.

With the help of a consultant, a former AT&T employee, the district is

restructuring its phone rates and has gotten on board with MCI (out-of-state)

and SNET (in-state) for some significant savings. The change has made all the

difference, according to school Business Director John Torok.

"We've just started seeing it in the last two month's bills, but there's

definitely some savings there," he explained. "We've reduced one out-of-state

calling rate by 75 percent. These days it's all a rates game."

Phone men have been traveling through the town's six schools re-inventorying

the phones. They're looking at hardware, replacing the out-of-date and

equipment and looking for better ways to reduce costs.

The school system, with its hundreds of phones, spends more than $100,000 in

phone bills each year.

According to Mr Torok, the savings will offset the cost of the growth as the

school facilities expand, so it won't actually be seen in the phone bills.

"We're trying to hold down the growing costs," he said.

While the expected savings will be significant, more than half of it will be

just a one-time cost cut.

In addition to its obvious uses, the school district's phone system is used

for computers, alarm systems and monitoring services.