The Idaho Senate approved a bill which will make schools to publish their financial data today. Now schools with over 300 students will be more transparent.

The bill was approved after Lt. Gov. Brad Little cast the deciding vote. This was the second time the bill was proposed.

We at Sunshine Review are strong believers in affirmative disclosure. What does that mean? It means that for the same reasons nutritional facts need to be on cereal boxes, we want to know what’s going on inside the government.

Unfortunately, not many government websites are up to speed on our wants and needs. So thinks tanks like the Maine Heritage Policy Center are filling in the gaps. Today they launched a website called GreatSchoolsForME.org. The site gives you data on state and local education spending data broken down into eleven cost centers (in dollars and by percent), tools to compare districts to each other and to statewide averages, school performance data, parent reviews, and up-to-date information on education reform ideas like school choice and charter schools.

“This is the first Web site of its kind in Maine,” said Stephen Bowen, director of the Center for Education Excellence. “With just a few clicks, students, parents and taxpayers can compare instructional versus non-instructional spending in their local school district, find out whether their district exceeds the state’s Essential Services and Programs spending benchmark, see how much education funding their district receives from the state, and track how well their local schools are performing. We hope Maine people will use the information available on GreatSchoolsForME.org to become more active in local and statewide conversations about school spending and student outcomes.”

Some argue for more “Sunshine” in government as if transparency is a positive onto itself. It is not. Transparency matters because it guarantees access to information that empowers every citizen to hold government officials accountable for the conduct of the publics’ business and the spending of taxpayers’ money. Official accountability to the citizen is the great positive; the corner stone of self government and liberty.

Sunshine matters because without transparency there can be no accountability. And, without accountability, there is no self government. Without accountability, government of the people is government over the people.

The opportunities for government transparency have never been greater. The Internet allows direct, low cost access to virtually unlimited quantities of documents and data, while an array of telecommunications devices can instantly transmit information to millions of citizens simultaneously. But for all the power of these technologies, government cannot be fully transparent—and thus accountable—unless disclosure is de rigueur.

Freedom of Information Act laws do facilitate a degree of citizen scrutiny. But government agencies easily exploit a variety of FOIA loopholes, and even the savviest citizens can be stymied by the convoluted requirements. Thus, government at every level must be forced to provide citizens ready access to all budgets, contracts, audits, permits, meeting minutes and the like. It is entirely reasonable to expect that such “affirmative disclosure” should be no less stringent than the multifarious disclosure demands government imposes on taxpayers.

Many states, counties, cities and school districts come up short in providing an appropriate level of transparency. For example, California’s budget site does not disclose line item expenditures, grants, state contracts, or employee compensation data. Massachusetts has no online database of state spending. New York posts its financial reports online, but in a PDF format that is not searchable.

A useful method of evaluating government Web sites—a 10-point “Transparency Checklist” —has been developed by Sunshine Review, a wiki platform for measuring government Web content against what should be available. As noted on the Sunshine Review Web site (www.SunshineReview.org), “We shouldn’t have to ask the government for permission to be an informed citizen.”

Michael Barnhart, Sunshine Review
mbarnhart@sunshinereview.org

An editorial appeared in the Wednesday edition of the Chicago Tribune, which outlined in greater detail the irregularities found in the Suburban Cook County Regional Office of Education budget. Included in this report are the shocking expenditures that Charles Flowers assumed would go unnoticed by the Cook County taxpayers. Unfortunately for him they have been noticed and a memo has been sent to Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez for their review into the taxpayer-funded shopping spree. A few of the shocking expenditures include:

• Changes for thousands of dollars in private expenses for him and his family on a trip to Mississippi
• $15,000 in cash advances for two employees, including his sister that holds a position as his administrative assistant
• Money paid towards his nephew who only worked eight hour days but received pay for nine

In addition to these purchases, Flowers still could not account for 70% of the receipts for charges made on this government card as mentioned in the previous blog entry. The state’s attorney will have her hands full as more details are uncovered regarding just how much taxpayer money was wasted at the command of Superintendent Flowers.

Corporate bailouts have been in the news as of late, but how about personal bailouts? Well, Charles Flowers, the superintendent of the Suburban Cook County Regional Office of Education was found recently to be skimming the district’s cash account when his paychecks just were not enough. Oh yeah, and this scheme also included his two sisters and nephew.
Phil Kadner of the Southtown Star reported that

Less that a year after his election, he approved a $6,000 cash to his sister Barbara Flowers. “These repayments were to occur each pay period stating on April 4th 2008.”

When the state auditor general became involved it was found and reported that, “the payroll register does not show any repayments between this date [April 4, 2008] and June 30, 2008.” This money, paid out illegally, and unbeknownst to the taxpayers, was used for various personal purchases whose receipts have conveniently been hard to locate. When asked about the allegations of theft, Dr. Flowers claimed that the bills were “repaid from his personal bank account.” Apparently the money was taken and paid back, all without proper documentation that would come with having the receipts on hand. No harm right? It will be interesting to see what the Illinois State’s Attorney will think of that story.

When it is all said and done, I think it’s safe to say that the taxpayers of greater Suburban Cook County will be calling for greater transparency within the district’s expansive public budget.
Actions that Cook County taxpayers will likely call for might mirror the measures that just have been enacted in Freeland and Bullock Creek schools in Michigan. These two schools are the first in the state to post their checkbook registers online as part of a ‘Show Michigan the Money’ statewide transparency project by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

Ultimately, something tells me that this will not be the last case of abuse we hear of within the public school systems in Illinois. This will especially be the case if the budgets become available to a wider range of taxpayers and watchdogs interested in where their money goes; both for planned projects and anything illegal in nature that might be going on.

TMCnet.com has picked up on the growing movement towards school transparency. Our friends at the Mackinac Center are asking all 551 Michigan schools to post their budgets and check registers online through their “Show Michigan the Money” program. Kenneth Braun, director of the project, explained the goal of this initiative:

“I’m not presuming there is great malfeasance in these districts. It’s more of a good community relations thing. We think everyone should do it, not just school districts, but other levels of government. It establishes trust within a community in a situation and time when the trust is kind of shaky.” Indeed, one Michigan district signed on after a payroll clerk embezzled more than $1 million before being brought to justice. In another Michigan school system that now complies with the checkbook project, the FBI and Justice Department prosecuted two employees for stealing, he said.

According to Sunshine Review, school districts should have the following information on their websites:
- Budget
- School district government meetings/agendas
- Elected officials of the school district
- School district administrators
- Lobbying/advocacy
- Access to government records and public documents
- Contracts with teachers and support staff
- Contracts with vendors
- Tax burden
- Criminal background checks
- Academic performance

The Sam Adams Alliance’s own Paul Miller also had a good point in the article:

“With transparency, you are going to have more school districts accountable to children and the parents instead of unions and special interests,” Mr. Miller said. “It’s a huge no-brainer. Parents have a right to know how their money is being spent on their children’s education.”

Let us know if you are interested in helping out with the My Government Website project on Sunshine Review. Volunteers are building new articles every day to help make our government more transparent, more accountable, and ultimately more effective.

The Alliance for School Choice has their 2008-09 yearbook available. It contains comprehensive research and analysis on the entire school choice movement. Check out the yearbook for solid information on tax credits, scholarships, polling, trends, and program data.

Today, there are 18 school choice programs operating in 10 states and the District of Columbia, serving 171,000 children. As you will read in this book, these programs are supported by Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, making school choice a truly nonpartisan movement.

School choice is a pillar of the free market movement, and I’m glad the Alliance for School Choice is presenting information in a transparent way.

The Education Action Group works to shed light on school-board union contract negotiations. It currently has two similar videos up at the EAG website. Go pick your favorite. I voted for this one:

Go check out Schools Open Montana for information on MT’s K-12 schools.

The first thing that caught my eye is the documented feedback the Montana Policy Institute received on their information request regarding salaries for public school employees. Apparently, most MT schools aren’t an any rush to reply to public information requests. Only 14 of the 205 schools bothered to send some or all of the requested information. That’s a pretty poor performance.

The Montana Public Records Act guarantees citizens the right to view public documents and receive information. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised of the poor access to information, since the Better Government Association ranked Montana #46 in the nation with an overall percentage of 38.40%.

This one is sure to play out in many states during the upcoming legislative sessions.

“Louisiana faces $2 billion shortfall next year; $345 million deficit in current budget”

“Teachers union seeks $2,200 raise in ’09″

This is a summary of Sunshine Review’s evaluation of LA school district websites:
-12 sites didn’t disclose contact information for board members
-35 did not list a meeting schedule
-72 had no budget information
-80 did not list information on how to obtain public records
-80 did not disclose any information about lobbying activities

With results like that, do schools deserve more money in Louisiana? Disclose, then ask for a raise. Taxpayers deserve to know how and where their money is being spent, especially in trying economic times.