Special Charges

9 Months Ended

Jun. 30, 2021

Special charges are incurred in connection with various transformative initiatives, exit activities, and organizational changes to improve our business alignment and cost structure. Although these charges are infrequent and unusual in nature, additional Special charges are expected to be incurred. It is not practicable to estimate the amount of these future expected costs until such time as the evaluations are complete. The following table summarizes the Special charges recognized for the three and nine months ended June 30, 2021 and 2020.


Special Charges	Three Months Ended June 30				Nine Months Ended June 30
	2021		2020		2021		2020
Global information technology transformation	$	3.0	$	6.7	$	8.1	$	15.3
Workforce reduction plan	0.4		—		24.0		—
Integration-related activities	2.1		2.4		7.6		9.2
Site consolidation and other cost optimization activities, including related severance cost	0.4		0.4		0.4		1.6
Total Special Charges	$	5.9	$	9.5	$	40.1	$	26.1

Global Information Technology Transformation

In fiscal 2019, management initiated a global information technology transformation, including rationalizing and transforming our enterprise resource planning software solutions and other complementary information technology systems.

The objective of this initiative is to consolidate and streamline our key workstreams that interact with customers and vendors and support our financial reporting processes while maintaining the security of our data. The solutions designed under this initiative will be implemented over the next four to six years.

Workforce Reduction Plan

On September 15, 2020, we committed to a workforce reduction plan as part of the continued business optimization initiatives to advance our strategy and growth platforms and improve our operations and cost structure. The workforce reduction plan includes a voluntary retirement program and involuntary severance actions. For the three and nine months ended June 30, 2021, we incurred $0.4 million and $24.0 million related to this initiative within Special charges.

Integration-Related Activities

We incurred costs, including severance and benefit costs, associated with business realignment and integration activities focused on reducing complexity, increasing efficiency, and improving our cost structure. We acquired several businesses as disclosed within Note 3. Business Combinations within the 2020 Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2020 for which we also continue to incur integration-related costs and severance costs.

Site Consolidation and Other Cost Optimization Activities, Including Related Severance Cost

We continue to streamline our operations and simplify our supply chain by transforming and consolidating certain manufacturing and distribution operations.

For all accrued severance and other benefit charges described above, we record reserves within Other current liabilities. The following table summarizes the reserve activity for severance and other benefits for the nine months ended June 30, 2021.


Balance as of September 30, 2020	$	11.3
Expenses	21.8
Cash payments	(22.0)
Reversals	(0.1)
Balance as of June 30, 2021	$	11.0