The ailing economy has spared few schools and universities. Faced with funding cutbacks, most education administrators have had to make difficult choices about where to allocate dwindling resources. Even in the best of financial times, educating students is the first priority. When money is tight, school maintenance and operations (M&O) programs have to try to keep facilities safe and clean even if there are fewer workers and less equipment to carry out the job. That means managers must take steps to improve the efficiency of their M&O programs. In this article, the author discusses ways of addressing maintenance issues and suggests the use of computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS), which enable a school or university to oversee more easily all the various activities being carried out in a maintenance department. He says one element in establishing an effective operations and maintenance program is convincing decisionmakers in an education institution that the resources being sought are needed and will be used wisely.