Invest in yourself and make the tool do what you want it to do. Take that money you'd have spent on hosting and each year do one major project to build upon Moodle by adding custom features. People don't think about that. Imagine what a Moodle partner could do with $20,000 for your school. Imagine if teachers came to you and said we want our LMS to do this and in short order you could make the LMS do just what they wanted.
We had just such an experience with a Moodle partner when we developed the Socialwall Course Format. We thought that format might get more teachers on-board but what really helped were features I outlined here: https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=358911 Working with a Moodle partner was a great experience. I wouldn't hesitate to do so again if we find funding again.