-I have attended many Board meetings of the Lake County School District for the last 15 years.
As a retired corporate internal audit manager, one major difference I observed between School Districts and businesses is the complete lack of performance or cost accounting reports. Nothing.
Instead, most government agencies just report "activity tracking" like students taught, attendance days, graduation rates, but no real efficiency tracking reports like cost per classroom, facility maintenance costs per school, or average transportation cost per student. Once such data exists, performance-oriented management would then establish plans to control or reduce each operating cost component and track it over time.
Some top-level issues where performance metrics are not tracked by local government managers:
- - For large construction projects in Florida, local government agencies don't even require that bidders bid on price. Instead, it is on soft criteria like "experience" but the top bidders don't have to provide a solid cost estimate for a project. Instead, once the top contractor is selected by soft criteria, the staff must "negotiate" the actual price. Since the top contractor has won, there is little incentive for them to offer low-cost options. This is really a weakness in the Florida statutes and exists to make it easier for large firms to out market small, local firms.
- - Government agencies have no requirement to track the cost of vehicles or facilities and compare operating costs. Then they also have no requirement or public reporting to the Board showing levels of deferred maintenance or replacements, thus they can keep putting off replacements of school buses until they are spending huge amounts on maintenance on obsolete equipment. Business uses operational tracking systems to ensure they replace equipment before repair costs exceed purchase costs. As an internal auditor in Alaskan oil fields, I once found a pickup truck with $78,000 in repairs charged to it because unions wanted to keep working and used it for make work during slow periods. The government does this all the time because management does not ensure proper replacement of equipment.
- I once asked a senior official in the Florida School Board Association if they offered any training or standards in performance measurement and she said: "no, because none of the school board members ever asked for it".
- There are many software systems for the government that offer performance measurement "dashboards" that show performance metrics by many operating units. But very few government boards request them or agencies buy them.
- There is a Florida benchmarking consortium ( https://www.flbenchmark.org/ ) that has almost 50 counties and cities in it, where the members DO run performance metrics by many areas, and compare them to each other in an annual report. But not one School District has asked to start similar reporting section for School Districts.
- The above consortium offers Lean Six Sigma training in process improvement and many City and County members have green and yellow "black belt" certifications in process improvement skills. Other than a few CPA's at LCSD, are there any Six Sigma certified managers at LCSD who actually understand process improvement or cost control methods? Read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Sigma
- No "manager" in government should have that title unless they practice concepts like discussed here. Instead, they should have the title of administrator and less pay since they have no benchmarks to show performance metrics and improvements.
- Another certification that would be valuable for all "managers" is the Project Management Certification. Anyone in management should be certified in the skills of project management. One well-known certificate is the Project Management Institute (PMI). The School District should research and select the best one and require "managers" to get certified before being assigned any project (like a grant).
- Personal time management is an important skill - all administrators and teachers should be required to complete a course (online or in person) like those based upon books by Stephen Covey, Brian Tracy or David Allen.
The Lake County School Board and Administration need to step up to the plate and protect taxpayer interests by implementing performance metric tracking systems. I will be providing examples in the future.
Attached below is the graphics performance tracking report from CareHere, as presented at the March 4th, 2019 Board workshop the firm that manages four employee health clinics for the Lake County School District. Their entire budget is around $5-million, but yet they have a more sophisticated MONTHLY reporting system to track operating efficiencies than anything I have seen at the School Board meetings. Download CareHere Board Workshop 3.4. 2019
The Lake County School Board should:
- ask staff to research, and provide a workshop on similar performance tracking dashboard systems for LCSD and provide a plan to implement it.
- establish a program for unit managers and directors to start certifications in Six Sigma.
- remove the title of "Manager" from any administrator unless they are certified in process improvement and have well designed monthly performance benchmarks and operating plans to improve processes and measurable productivity.
- Require "managers" to get certified in project management like that from the PMI.
- Appoint a mid-level "manager" (such as a very experienced Principal) to be the performance improvement manager and research a report monthly on recommended steps to improve efficiencies and processes. Why is there a finance officer, but no manager over MEASURING, reporting and improving LCSD-wide efficiencies?
- Require the administration to establish a plan to have all administrators, supervisors, and teachers take an online class in personal and work time management by mainstream authors like described above.
Until the above actions are implemented, the LCSD Board and Administration cannot claim they are watching out for taxpayer interests, or the school district is efficient. They need to direct the implementation of a culture of performance management objectives at LCSD as well as educational objectives.
Government managers need to start learning how to improve work processes and report them in understandable, monthly benchmark reports. The Board should be getting monthly performance benchmark reports like any business would expect, especially when the operating budget is over $300-million using taxpayer funds.
Vance Jochim
FiscalRangers.com
April 22, 2019
References:
A 1917 Book on School Efficiency
Three ways to reduce expenses and improve efficiencies in your School District
School Efficiency: A Manual of Modern School Management by Bennett - 1923
Turning Around Failing Schools - Murphy & Meyers - 2008
