Most government agencies have at least one thing in common: budget challenges. Regardless of the economy at large, the public sector is always trying to find ways to do more with less. Further exacerbating this persistent dilemma, the COVID-19 pandemic acted as “gas on an economic fire” and brought to light the continuous stress placed on government budgets.
But there are remedies to budget limitations in government. Serving agencies of varying sizes with expense reduction services, business intelligence firm ProcureAmerica supports all levels of government: states, counties, cities, local school districts, public universities and colleges—bringing both “local knowledge” and proven best practices to bear. ProcureAmerica’s impact in the San Diego region offers a textbook case study of the benefits of applying regional expertise across multiple government entities.
For example, the County of San Diego will realize over $4 million in cost reduction delivered through Procure America’s proprietary Utility Tariff Rate Optimization Studies (TROS). The TROS team also identified billing errors that led to a $750,000 refund from SDG&E. These savings were generated without any capital outlay, investment, nor operational changes from the County. In other words, these were net realized savings.
“We were very impressed with the ProcureAmerica team’s great work on this utility analysis,” said Charley Marchesano, San Diego’s Energy and Sustainability Program Chief. “I certainly did not expect to see so much come up.”
In the City of Escondido’s municipal government chambers, word got around that ProcureAmerica’s expense review services are available to public agencies at no review cost or investment. The City went all in and engaged ProcureAmerica’s team to conduct 3 reviews-including their utilities, print management and telecommunications programs and expenses, resulting in nearly $2 million in program savings delivered back to the City.
“Public agencies should always be evaluating cost-cutting opportunities where appropriate,” said Jay Petrek, Escondido’s Assistant City Manager. “My staff and I greatly appreciated the thorough and efficient review conducted by ProcureAmerica. Their staff were knowledgeable, professional and transparent in the options they provided for our agency to generate significant savings.”
Down the road, UC San Diego and UC San Diego Health also took advantage of the ProcureAmerica’s utility TROS services. This review delivered over $2,550,250 in refunds and ongoing annual savings of $1,460,450. “Not only did ProcureAmerica generate significant savings for us,” said Sustainability Officer Barbara Hamilton, “but their practice groups are completely self-contained and conducted their work with very little staff support.”
A few miles northeast, Poway Unified School District engaged ProcureAmerica to complete an in-depth telecommunications analysis (voice, data and wireless). Always an expensive and complex service, telecommunications is more crucial than ever in the face of distance learning and the need for virtual-enabled classrooms. ProcureAmerica’s telecommunications team practice group delivered Poway Unified with over $450,000 in telecommunications program savings—again without any capital outlay, investment, nor operational changes.
Where ProcureAmerica’s impact extends across multiple agencies in specific regions, the team has the unique ability to apply opportunities and lessons learned in each assignment to multiple clients. “Our work in the San Diego area really showcases what regional experience can deliver,” said CEO Fred Armendariz. “Sharing ‘local best practices’ with sister agencies delivers swift, actionable and impactful strategies. It’s much easier to walk on the water when you know where the rocks are!”
About ProcureAmerica
ProcureAmerica is the nation’s leading business intelligence company supporting government, education, healthcare and private industry. Our services support and deliver operational efficiency, fiscal responsibility, expense transparency and net cost reduction. We have industry expertise in six specific expense categories: Utilities, Waste & Recycling, Telecommunications, Print Management, Technology Optimization, and Treasury.