Michigan's School Aid fund increased once more this year, but many school administrators in the state continue to hunt for effective measures to reduce spending due to increased pension costs and phased-out stimulus money. Many options available for trimming costs, such as enacting pay-to-play for sports, are extremely unpopular for districts and…

Over the past decade and a half, state governments have assumed greater responsibility over demand-side management (DSM) operations. Whereas DSM programs formerly were initiated primarily by utilities or state public utility commissions, they are now becoming increasingly state-initiated and incentivized through funding mechanisms or…

Michigan school districts face tough choices allocating their resources to provide students with an education. Despite increased spending in Michigan schools, school boards regularly have to find ways to trim expenses, and sometimes that means lowering employment benefits, eliminating positions and other moves that few school board members enjoy.…

Purpose/Objectives: The Direct Verification Pilot tested the feasibility, effectiveness, and costs of using Medicaid and State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) data to verify applications for free and reduced-price (FRP) school meals instead of obtaining documentation from parents and guardians. Methods: The Direct Verification Pilot…

Privatization of support services has been a method that Michigan school districts have used for several years to lower costs. More than ever before, Michigan school districts are privatizing the three main support services they offer--food, custodial and transportation. The annual survey finds that 48.8 percent of Michigan school districts are…

This final article in a series on identification of cost/benefits data, formulation of models, and data collection discusses use of cost/benefits analysis results. The following issues are addressed: how to be prepared for study objections; how to increase understanding of your study; and viewing cost/benefit analysis as an iterative activity.…

Presents seven questions for tracking the effectiveness of training: (1) who is the client; (2) what is the problem or opportunity; (3) which results are to be tracked; (4) how is training linked to the results; (5) what is the total cost; (6) what information is needed; and (7) how long does it take to determine results. (SK)

PPBS is a way to improve the methods used in planning, programing, budgeting, and evaluating Federal programs. Careful analysis of proposed expenditures and investments are an explicit part of the PPB system. The process of examining various alternatives in order to assure efficient and effective allocation of resources is known as cost analysis.…

This study, based on research by UNESCO's International Institute for Educational Planning, deals with a prime contemporary problem, that of how to provide better education to more people in the face of tightening budgets, escalating costs, and educational conservatism. The authors contend that the imaginative use of cost analysis can be a…

Describes two types of program budgeting that were well received in the literature of the 1960s and 1970s. The results of a survey which examined the impact of zero-based budgeting (ZBB) and planning-programming-budgeting system (PPBS) on library budgets are presented, and potentially useful aspects of program budgeting are identified. (CLB)

This paper presents a complex, hybrid, method of cost analysis of online courses, which incorporates data on expenditures; student/course enrollment; departmental consumption/contribution; space utilization/opportunity costs; direct non-personnel costs; computing support; faculty/staff workload; administrative overhead at the department, dean, and…

The report provides a detailed review of the seven and one-half year Mississippi Labor Mobility Project, STAR, Inc., whose operations and research concerned the utility and feasibility of subsidizing worker relocation assistance to the unemployed/underemployed poor for the purposes of improving their economic and social opportunities. Almost 2,500…

The study attempted to determine the feasibility of performing a cost-effectiveness analysis comparing the cooperative method to methods which do not use work experience in vocational training. Twelve school districts in Minnesota, North Carolina, and Ohio provided data for the study, involving the design of data collection instruments for cost…