The evidence-based decision-making emphasis in education has largely focused on the adoption of new practices for which evidence of effectiveness exists. Following adoption, however, the focus shifts to improvement and the appropriate evidence needed to support budget decisions must be local, timely, and relevant. Existing evidence used to support adoption rarely meets these requirements, thus the critical task for educators at the improvement stage is to produce the necessary evidence. Since 2018, we have investigated the viability of Academic Return-on-Investment (AROI) as both a framework and a practical metric for informing budget decisions aimed at improvement. As a decision-making framework, AROI relies on the notions of scrutiny and return to provide supporting evidence for leaders' efforts to obtain the greatest academic benefits for each dollar invested. As a metric, AROI is a ratio of effectiveness to costs, weighted by the number of participants, typically interpreted as the change in outcome per unit cost. Although our practical AROI metric compared well with more rigorous cost-effectiveness and value-added analytic results for informing budget decisions, we note the adaptability within a general AROI framework to tailor the research design and methodology to a particular situation and to answer the pertinent decision-oriented research question(s). Based on our findings, we view AROI as a flexible approach to generating evidence that is local, timely, and relevant to inform budget decisions in the improvement phase of an investment. Developing the necessary organizational and data infrastructure to support AROI implementation requires top leadership support and patience. Because AROI results are informative rather than definitive, close collaboration with investment item owners is crucial to engender trust and guide improvement efforts.