Construction Project Case Study for School District 27J

Image of 27J Schools logo
Image of 27J Schools logo

In 2015, voters within the Brighton, Colorado, school district 27J approved a $248M bond.  This bond fund’s intent was to fund new school construction and existing school expansion in order to accommodate the huge growth in population within this district’s boundaries.  All told, 4 new schools (2 elementary, 1 middle school, and 1 high school) have been built, along with significant expansions and enhancements in another 25 district locations.  (This construction program “touched” every building in the district including auxiliary buildings.)  This is obviously a huge scope of construction activity.  With many vendors and components, and a lot of moving pieces, plus the added transparency required of a bond-funded construction project, a lot of budget management talent, helped by great tools, was required.

A bond project of this size and complexity required both great Budget Management expertise, and great Budget Management tools!

In 2015, voters within the Brighton, Colorado, school district 27J approved a $248M bond.  This bond fund’s intent was to fund new school construction and existing school expansion in order to accommodate the huge growth in population within this district’s boundaries.  All told, 4 new schools (2 elementary, 1 middle school, and 1 high school) have been built, along with significant expansions and enhancements in another 25 district locations.  (This construction program “touched” every building in the district including auxiliary buildings.)  This is obviously a huge scope of construction activity.  With many vendors and components, and a lot of moving pieces, plus the added transparency required of a bond-funded construction project, a lot of budget management talent, helped by great tools, was required.

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“No need to be technical to use budget4cast! It is both powerful and intuitive.”

Becky has been using budget4cast‘s construction budget management software for almost 4 years.  Not only does she consistently rely upon this great tool, but her team of upwards of 10 analysts and project managers also use the project budget app on a regular basis.  She reports that budget4cast is “powerful and simple”, and very easy to use.  In particular, she loves that she can easily drill down into the details of any item/cost in her project budget, by simply clicking on that entry in the browser.

For all the powerful features of budget4cast, Becky finds she gets the most value from the concise, real-time, and transparent presentation of the construction budget data.  Even with a large and complex project such as the new Riverdale Ridge High School, she is able to feel comfortable that the budget is understood and under control.  She sleeps well each night knowing there won’t be any big surprises for the project.

Ultimately, the most powerful aspect of budget4cast is the time savings: Becky reports over 30% reduction in effort versus managing her construction project budgets in Excel!