San Diego County Saves $2.85 Million Through Utility Rate Reductions and Rebates
Challenge
County of San Diego was facing steep, inflation-driven increases in electricity and natural-gas costs across 1,500+ utility accounts — a major burden that their already stretched energy-management team lacked capacity to audit or optimize under complex tariff rules.
Approach
ProcureAmerica (part of SIB) performed its proprietary Utility Tariff Rate Optimization Study (TROS), conducting a meter-by-meter forensic review of tariff rates, surcharges, taxes and fees — then worked directly with utility providers to re-assign accounts to optimized rate schedules, eliminate improper charges, secure exemptions and recover refunds, all without requiring the County to change their consumption
Results
million total verified utility cost savings
- $763,542 in one-time refunds and utility credits
- Savings achieved with zero operational or consumption changes
- No capital outlay required
These outcomes enabled the County to redirect funding into critical community services while improving utility expense governance
CFO Takeaway
With SpendBrain, organizations build a permanent spend advantage by transforming fragmented vendor and invoice data into cost intelligence that drives EBITDA.
Summary
Government / Public Sector
County of San Diego, serving 3.3 million residents with an approx. $8 billion operating budget for health, public safety, and community services.
Rising utility costs across 1,500+ utility accounts and highly complex tariff structures taxed internal teams with limited bandwidth, making cost management difficult without detailed regulatory and tariff expertise.
ProcureAmerica (an SIB company) conducted a deep forensic Utility Tariff Rate Optimization Study (TROS), identifying and implementing favorable rate schedules, surcharge eliminations, tax exemptions, and corrections — with future SpendBrain™ monitoring to identify ongoing opportunities.
$2.85 million in verified utility cost savings with no consumption changes, no capital outlay, and $763,542 in one-time refunds and credits realized to support critical county services.
Where traditional audits end, SpendBrain begins
SpendBrain™, SIB’s AI-powered financial intelligence platform, continuously analyzes expense categories, including property tax, utilities, and vendor payments.
By layering this technology over SIB’s hands-on expertise, our clients gain a permanent safeguard against overspend, plus predictive visibility into future cost risk.
What this means for CFOs:
- Automated monitoring flags anomalies and valuation shifts in real time
- Predictive insights help finance leaders budget and forecast more accurately
- Portfolio-level intelligence connects tax savings to broader spend optimization strategies
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