State legislatures often see consolidation of services as part of the strategy for solving district financial challenges. Our firm was retained to evaluate district transportation in a county with 11 districts. We proposed evaluating the operational efficiency of the transportation departments rather than spend money on an expensive consolidation study. We designed a thorough benchmarking tool that involved key data, practices, policies, interviews and site visits. We discovered a wide range (25% below the mean to 35% above the mean) in costs using traditional measures and found that traditional cost comparisons are inadequate for predicting what costs should be. We developed a cost and performance model for the area that shows districts how to push the cost curve down, avoid consolidation and continue to provide personal service to students. The area can now reduce unnecessary costs and if necessary look at the next step of consolidation. Lesson learned – start with the basics, improve those immediately and then look to more complex solutions.
Archive for November 10th, 2010
School Consolidation Case History – Focus on Basics
November 10th, 2010School Cost Reduction Case History No. 1
November 10th, 2010Several school districts were faced with challenges in thier business/treasury office. District leadership thought the office could operate more efficiently but the business managers didnt see opportunities for improvement (without any data to support the observation). We conducted a thorough assessment of the operations and using benchmarking identified a wide range in the costs of key services provided by the business departments. In fact the district with the lowest cost per student had the highest cost per payroll check and highest cost per AP check. We also correlated business practices to efficiency and used the results to provide a plan of action for reducing costs by 10% to 20% within 6 months. Lesson Learned -Department leaders often cant see the opportunity to improve because they dont have any way of measuring the cost or efficiency of thier services. Data and analysis shed light on the opportunities and solutions that help reduce unnecessary costs.
How to Get a School Levy Passed
November 10th, 2010As a former major urban district COO who was responsible for levy campaigns, I am seeing a major disconnect between school leaders and tax payers. When placed in charge of a levy, the first thing I wanted to know was how did tax payers think we were using thier money? The answer – 10% or less thought were using it wisely. We launched a multi year, district wide strategy to cut costs and improve effiiciency. Part of the strategy involved keeping the public informed about how we improved and reduced costs – not how we cut costs and reduced services. Anyone can cut costs and services – but tapayers take notice when efficiency based improvements are made. As we can see from the result of levy campaigns – we are in a new era – that requires new strategies. The old methods wont work any more and taxpayers have much higher expectations. You can meet and beat those expectations if you start improving efficiency instead of cutting costs and services and frame your public relations campaign to communicate that message.