CCSD board approves $1.4 million operational efficiency study

The Clark County School District Board of School Trustees voted Jan. 8 to approve a one‑time, roughly $1.4 million Educational and Operational Efficiency Study meant to identify opportunities to streamline district operations and free recurring resources for classrooms.

Trustee Esparza, who led the request for public discussion before the vote, said trustees heard community concern about the item’s size and stressed that “optics matter” when large contracts are proposed while schools face budget pressures. The board then heard a detailed presentation from Chief Financial Officer Justin Dayhoff and Superintendent Ebert about the study’s scope and expected deliverables.

Dayhoff said the study is designed to provide “an objective and best‑in‑class data‑driven assessment of how our academic, operational, and support systems are functioning” and to generate implementable action plans. He told trustees that similar engagements with the proposed vendor have been used by more than 150 districts across a dozen states and produced large annual recurring savings for some districts, including net recommendations cited in the tens of millions of dollars when other districts implemented them.

Trustees pressed staff on the district’s prior use of outside firms, comparative price benchmarks and what the board and community could expect to see. Trustee Esparza and others asked staff to point to the district’s 2011 work with the firm and the specific results from other large districts (Trustee Esparza referenced Hillsborough and Tucson; Dayhoff identified Anne Arundel County Public Schools in Maryland as a district of similar scale used as a reference). Staff said the contract includes two phases and that the work is expected to produce deliverables tied to action plans and be complete within calendar year 2026.

Supporters on the board framed the contract as an investment to identify recurring operational savings. Dayhoff presented a per‑pupil cost comparison — approximately $5 per pupil on a district of ~280,000 students — and said the district expects the study’s recommendations to enable long‑term savings if implemented.

After discussion the board took a motion to approve item 3.05; the motion passed.

The study award and vendor details are recorded in the board materials. Staff said they will return to the board with implementation updates and deliverables as the firm produces them.