Municipal administration of Jõelähtme has completely renovated Loo Secondary School. However, the very first stage revealed that the Municipality is only able to invest 60,000 EUR in new furnishings of the planned 200,000 EUR. The Municipality and the School fees started looking for solutions for the newly renovated building not to be furnished with old and worn furniture.
Having discussed the situation with the Principal, we offered the School an opportunity to use operating lease for furniture acquisition, which enabled the Municipality to divide the necessary expenses between 5 fiscal years. Therefore, we used only 36,000 EUR of the available 60,000 EUR in the current year’s budget of the Municipality, thus saving 24,000 EUR for other urgent expenses.
In addition, the Municipality announced hire-purchase, not a standard procurement procedure, to furnish the School that specified the rental provider’s responsibility to acquire all the required assets. Such a scheme enabled us, as a wholesale buyer, to purchase the items of premium quality and at the best possible price from each supplier (i.e., wholesale prices on small quantities). This resulted in saving 32,000 EUR of the initially planned price. If the Municipality had had the money to buy all the furniture back then, they would have spent 32,000 EUR more than they will now spend in 5 years including the interest and property insurance payments.
In addition to saving money, we have helped schools create mappings of furnishings, which provides an ideal overview of the existing condition of furnishings as well as the missing parts and the ones in need of replacement. The given document is provided to schools as a development plan or a budget for the next 5 years, listing all the required property with prices, whereas expenses are divided between the upcoming years depending on their priority.
School furnishings are precisely the same assets losing value over time as are cars that ought to be acquired on lease, rather than investing Municipality funds into furnishings. Using our services as a wholesale purchaser for asset acquisition, pecuniary benefit is guaranteed.