Case Study: Arizona Department of Education achieves streamlined finance and reporting and $40M in savings with Microsoft Azure

The Arizona Department of Education fixes a broken finance and reporting system with Microsoft Azure and the Ed-Fi Alliance

The Arizona Department of Education faced a fractured finance and reporting system that relied on dozens of outdated, siloed databases—producing 2.3 million annual transaction errors, costing districts about $30 million a year to correct, consuming 568,000 staff hours, and leaving the legacy system unreliable and full of bugs. The DOE was responsible for reimbursing 2,200 public schools and needed accurate, timely data for more than one million students and 65,000 teachers but lacked a unified way to deliver it.

Using Microsoft Azure (including Azure SQL Database) and the Ed‑Fi Alliance, the DOE consolidated disparate data streams into a single, API-driven platform and dashboard. Processing times dropped from days to 3–5 hours (with some jobs shrinking from 11 hours 20 minutes to 47 minutes), enabling real-time access to student records, more accurate reimbursements, and better-informed teaching. The modernization reduced manual work, is estimated to save roughly $40 million in local staff time, and empowered educators and administrators to make data-driven decisions.

Arizona Department of Education

Mark Masterson

CIO