School District Spending Cuts

Real ideas for school district savings from Great City Schools and McKinsey AEI Event

Absentiesm – as high as 11% in some districts could save $230,000 if you had 10,000 teachers and lowered it to 6%. For that district it means that on any given day, there are 1,100 untrained people teaching students. So every day a minimum of 20,000 students are pretty much wasting the day. Very sad. More to come on the substitute issue.

What is affecting school spending? Everything is putting a downward pressure on budgets. Federal level is up but it is only temporary. State revenue is declining and property taxes are drastically decreasing. Meanwhile costs are increasing in almost every category.
• Must look at all contracts and push vendors for reductions – strategic sourcing
• Transportation optimization – must streamline especially with gas prices on the rise
• Must make operations more efficient (lean six sigma for education)
• Benefit programs must be redesigned – look at all cost structures and streamline
• Central office – look at the budget and determine if it is efficient
• Facility use – savings and potential revenue stream
• Performance management – key performance indicators to allow targeting improvements and seeing results
• Instructional program effectiveness and efficiency