Lake County School District

Volkwagen Management vs Professional Level Management Performance Reporting

By Vance Jochim – revised 1/28/08www.FiscalRangers.com

Remember the VW?

• Simple, cheap, slow like a turtle

It had only one gage to measure performance

• Speedometer• Also had two “Idiot

Gages” • They only went ON

when oil pressure or battery were low

• Thus you did not know of pending failure until it happened

1941 Stinson Aircraft Measured More Performance Factors

So Does this Ford Racecar which uses a Video screen dash

And this remote video dashboard

But, the School District uses VW one Gage management

• Only one annual report, the CAFR, is published 6-9 months after year end.

• It basically shows data to get a bond credit rating.

• It only shows one “gage” – budget spent, or not all spent.

• No ratio analysis, no monthly or quarterly management performance reports or activity benchmarks.

School District Management Reporting

• Oppaga benchmark reports not prepared as recommended in Oppaga audits.

• No evidence of any performance management reports in Board packages for last 3 months of 2007. Board is only now getting delayed 2007 budget variance reports. Requests for monthly reports were deferred for 6 months by CFO.

Issue

• School District Has no Public Monthly or Quarterly Financials to Indicate Effectiveness of Non-Instructional Operations Management

• CAFR is useless for analyzing management effectiveness over operations. It is intended to obtain bond ratings. There is no useful ratio analysis and it is issued WAY TOO LATE to take corrective action to control costs.

• The only management tracking seems to be budget compliance, which is either spent, or not all spent – same as VW Idiot light – only on or off

• Taxpayers should have right to receive same management oversight that business practices.

Conclusion

• Credibility of numbers used for Impact study is questionable.

• If no monthly performance reporting using Opagga benchmarks is used, then how do we know that mis-management is not WASTING 50% of budgets?

• District needs to move to monthly, performance management reports based upon business practices, other school districts and customized Oppaga benchmark ratios.

Recommendation

• Board initiate policy mandating business quality level monthly management reports tracking activity unit productivity and they be produced starting in end of February.

• Reports should show measurable performance benchmarks vs actual for each non-instruction “activity” defined in 2006 CAFR (Pg 64)

• Benchmarks should be based upon business industry standards, plus show Oppaga benchmarks, and last two year history.

Recommendation

• No further raises, promotions or bonuses be given to Administrative staff & non-instructional management for next year until the management reports are implemented and evaluated in public workshops.

• Reason: Taxpayers deserve the same quality of management productivity tracking practices as those used by business.

If the Recommendations are Implemented, you will get this:

Source

• A copy of this Powerpoint slideshow is at the Lake County Fiscal Rangers blog at:

• http://webworks.typepad.com/lakecountyfiscalrangers/– Or it can be reached via:

www.FiscalRangers.com