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.

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