Several 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.

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