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Education Facilities Survey Paints Aging Picture for Buildings, Staff
June 24, 2016
SchoolDude, a provider of education operations management systems, recently released the results of a survey of 400 K-12 and higher education facilities, maintenance and operations professionals.
The comprehensive study collected financial and demographic data from districts, schools, and colleges with to provide insights into current budget and staffing levels.
“We embarked on this study to help empower our clients and their facilities decisions with advanced operational and industry insights,” says Lee Provost, chief strategy officer. “With the average age of school buildings crossing the 40-year-mark, facility maintenance and capital planning decisions become more critical. These educational operations benchmarks are helpful for informing facilities-based decisions and justifying resources, budget, and staff.”
The complete survey report can be found here. Some of the more interesting findings include:
• Both K-12 schools and colleges face the task of maintaining aging facilities infrastructure. The average age of K-12 facilities is 38 years, and the average age of higher education facilities is 40 years.
• More than 80 percent of K-12 and higher education facilities say that most of their maintenance is done in-house.
• The average age of facilities staff is 45 years old.
• During the last five years, a higher number of K-12 institutions reported their maintenance and operations (M&O) budgets increased rather than decreased. Nearly 30 percent of K-12 M&O budgets stayed the same the last five years.
• K-12 spends a higher percentage of its budget on payroll than higher ed.
• Higher ed spends a higher percentage of its budget on energy than K-12.
• In K-12, 78 percent of schools indicated the infusion of technology was very likely or somewhat likely to affect classroom redesign in the near term. In higher ed, the figure was 91 percent.
This quick read was submitted by Dave Lubach, associate editor for Facility Maintenance Decisions. Reach him at dave.lubach@tradepress.com. For more articles on education facilities click here.
