Book-tracking project saves district money

A Higley Unified School District inventory project that will eventually catalogue every textbook, class reading book and teaching material has saved the district an estimated half a million dollars.

The Higley Destiny Textbook Inventory Project started in January as a way to identify materials the district already owned. The goal was to redistribute and allocate resources better throughout the district, and save money by not buying items the district already had stored somewhere, said Joyce Lewis, Higley’s supervisor of instructional technology.

Because of the project, about $325,000 in textbooks have been found and set aside in the warehouse for the opening of Centennial Elementary School in August, Lewis said. On average, an elementary school needs about $450,000 in textbooks to open a K-8 school, she said.

“I’m sure there will be some books we need, but the majority of the books we won’t have to buy (for Centennial),” said Lewis, who has a degree in supply chain management from Arizona State University. “We would have not redistributed that normally, but as a part of the project we can more efficiently use our resources.”

The project comes at a good time in the district as Higley grapples with a projected $4.1 million budget cut. The exact amount will not be known until the state figures out its budget.

Legislators are working to address a possible $4 billion shortfall in revenue next fiscal year, which begins July 1.

In an e-mail, Higley interim Superintendent Denise Birdwell said “the fiscal cuts have caused us to look deep at our resources. As we review our assets, we look for ways to stretch our resources.”

“This project allowed the district to support the opening of Centennial through internal resources of textbooks. We are able to reduce our textbook purchase significantly.”

About 20 employees, mainly the elementary schools’ media specialists and library aides and the high school’s bookstore managers, along with dozens of teachers and students, scoured every shelf, closet and classroom throughout the district.

The group was recognized Thursday at the school board meeting with a district “Achievement Above All” award.

“The award is given to employees who go above and beyond for student learning,” Birdwell said. “This team exemplifies a dedicated staff who are committed to our students.”

The team identified $5.4 million in materials, tagged the items with a bar code, and catalogued the books and curriculum resources in the Destiny computer program, which the district already uses to track library books. No new software was needed for the project, Lewis said.

Now, teachers and students will check out their books and materials through the computer program, and at any given time district staff will know where every item in the district is.

The media specialists and bookstore managers will be in charge of keeping track of the items at their school.

“It will be similar to checking out books in the library,” said Darla Harguess, the media specialist at Higley Elementary and Middle School. “Teachers can check out their textbooks for their class, and students who need to take books home will check the book out for themselves.”

The largest loss of textbooks came from students borrowing books and never bringing them back, Harguess said.

“At our school (Higley Elementary and Middle School), we had a lot of materials sitting in cupboards and not being used,” said Harguess, who works at the district’s oldest school. “Now these materials will be sent to another school or the new school. Plus, we found materials that were sent to another school and not returned to us.”

Typically, the district spends between $1.5 million and $2 million a year on textbook purchases. The project will save the district an estimated $185,000 to $200,000 a year at a minimum just on textbooks, Lewis said.

“We’re shifting resources as opposed to buying resources,” Lewis said. “We’re also selling off obsolete and excess textbooks.”

Before the project, only 2 percent of the district’s textbooks were in the system. Now, 85 percent of the textbooks have been tracked through the Destiny program, Harguess said.

“As books came in, the district was trying to do this, but the problem was a lack of training,” Harguess said. “Some of the items were bar coded but never entered into the system. Every school also didn’t follow the same procedure.

“I really do think it’s been a worthwhile project,” she said. “I think it will benefit all Higley students.”