Lee served as the Division Administrator of Financial and Information Services in the Iowa Department of Education from 1988 to his early retirement in 2006.   While in the department, he was directly involved in major rewrites of Iowa's school finance laws and special projects studying the finance, expenditure, and program equity among Iowa school districts.  He was appointed by the Governor to the School Budget Review Committee in 2008.  Since his retirement from the Iowa Department of Education, Lee works as an independent consultant in the areas of school finance, longitudinal data systems, and data quality and currently serves on state and nation advisory committees.