Iowa Association of School Boards facing corruption and secrecy problems, could benefit from transparency

The Des Moines Register reports that the Iowa Association of School Boards spends $6 million a year of taxpayer dollars. However, it describes it as a “privately run nonprofit organization.” This begs the question: how is an organization “privately run” when it’s run on $6,000,000 taxpayer dollars?

The Iowa Association of School Boards fired its Executive Director Maxine Kilcrease last week, and thus showed some responsibility on behalf of the taxpayers whose money fund its activities. Kilcrease being fired came six months after she allegedly raised her own annual salary to $367,000 without the knowledge or consent of the organization’s governing board.

The association is an advocacy organization for school boards in Iowa. Sunshine Review labels these sort of organizations “taxpayer-funded lobbying organizations,” because they work to advocate on behalf of local governments and are funded by dues paid by those governments. Governments are, of course, funded by taxpayers.

Because the Executive Director did not consult the board on her pay increase, the board stated it felt “misled and blocked from information.” The board fired the now-former executive director under a clause in her contract that allows the association to withhold her remaining contract amount in the case of “moral turpitude.” Additionally, Kilcrease will be required to reimburse the organization for roughly $50,000 in pay, in addition to the $59,000 Kilcrease repaid earlier this month.

The association is also paying for handwriting analysis on IASB documents related to Kilcrease’s employment, a possible indication that there’s some question as to their legitimacy.

Kilcrease’s unauthorized pay increase is worse in context, and seems to be deserving of the label “moral turpitude.” Kilcrease laid off several association employees, supposedly in order to help address a $1.5 million budget shortfall. Kilcrease, meanwhile, raised her own pay and gave major pay raises to three other IASB officials close to her or responsible for her being hired.

But the IASB has even more problems, making some school districts question their membership in the organization. The FBI, the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Education, and a team of forensic auditors are all looking into a variety of allegations related to IASB. There are also allegations of nepotism and conflicts of interest.

Even more than mere allegations, there is an actual history of misconduct and incompetence in the organization. Former Chief Financial Officer Kevin Schick allegedly used an association credit card to help pay for a vacation in Bora Bora.

The association board’s treasurer, expressing shock and dismay about Kilcrease’s actions, stated that until recently the board had a long-standing policy that barred the board from accessing any information on the salaries of staff members other than the executive director. The association does not even have internal transparency.

All of the problems these association is having could have been avoided. In New Hampshire, a recent court case has made it so that groups like the Iowa School Board Association have to fulfill Freedom of Information Act requests. Iowa should consider legislation that would do the same. The secrecy, even within the association, has allowed problems to fester, and the saying “sunshine is the best disinfectant” may be overused, but it’s absolutely true. A persistent journalist or a regular citizen armed with a FOIA could have prevented some, if not all, of the problems the Iowa Association of School Boards is facing.

More importantly, an organization spending $6 million in taxpayer money is not a private nonprofit. The IASB should consider some affirmative disclosure as a responsibility it takes upon itself, a responsibility to the taxpayers who unwittingly fund it, even without legislation or a court case compelling it to do so.

U.S. PIRG on transparency: more states should do more of it

Along the same lines of the policy brief on Florida’s transparency I blogged about yesterday, the U.S. PIRG has come out with an interesting study on states providing online access to government data, concluding that there are no downsides to government providing data online in a searchable format, there are only benefits.

In Following the Money: How the 50 States Rate in Providing Online Access to Government Spending Data, the authors aim to provide a benchmark for comparing states in their individual road to providing government data online. They start by highlighting several key points about transparency in general. Among these:
*The movement toward Transparency 2.0 is broad, bipartisan, and popular.
*Transparency 2.0 saves money and bolsters citizen confidence.
*Even in leading states, there are many opportunities to improve transparency Web sites.

What does the study propose? Simply put, more—more information, more usability. The study outlines three criteria for Transparency 2.0. First, the portal a government posts its data on should be comprehensive, including all spending data for all levels of government. Second, it should provide all of this information in one site, not make you jump around to partner sites. Lastly, the information and search functions must be user-friendly, allowing citizens to enter a single query or browse common-sense categories.

The study also highlights innovative governments that get creative. San Francisco, for example, recently launched DataSF, a searchable Web site that provides data on a variety of city issues and allows users to comment on and rank the datasets with the hope of improving government performance in the future. The Web site also provides mobile phone apps that integrate the data and provide residents with useful tools. We at Sunshine Review love that sort of

So why should governments embrace transparency, according to U.S. PIRG? Transparency websites can help reduce fraud and misspending. The promise of posting information online makes shady officials know they have citizens to answer to and reminds fiscally irresponsible officials to think twice about a line item. Transparency portals are “excellent tools of civic engagement.” They encourage citizens to work together with government and remove that distance between voter and candidate. The study’s authors note in another section that without accurate and up-to-date data, citizens lack the tools to interact with their elected officials. The lines of communication only flow one way. And for all these benefits and the others detailed in Following the Money, the cost of a web transparency portal isn’t much. Another benefit of transparency: it’s cheap.

Basically, every facet of transparency is a good, inexpensive, money-and-legitimacy saving consequence. It’s like music to our ears. If governments want to ensure a happy citizenry that is engaged, it should collaborate with us by following the spirit and ideas outlined in Following the Money.

Horry County starts streaming meetings, and other innovation in transparency

Horry County in South Carolina is a great example of how a little innovation in transparency can go a long way. Horry County will stream its County Council meetings online, live.

This isn’t innovative in the sense that the county has invented a new tool, but it does mean that the county is using technology it to collaborate with citizens. Now, citizens that are interested in becoming engaged in local politics but are too busy with their daily lives can watch council meetings from home and experience government as if they were physically at the meetings. The fact that the county is streaming its meetings is symbolic of the county’s is readiness to open its doors and invite citizens in.

In terms of inventing new tools, innovation in transparency is moving forward. Top officials in government are working on a “National Dashboard for Open Data.” This project would put together available data from governments, but present it in a usable format that citizens and policy makers could use with ease. The officials involved in very preliminary brainstorms for such a project include San Francisco CIO Chris Vein, Beth Noveck, Obama’s deputy CTO for open government, and Federal CIO Vivek Kundra. One plan for furthering this project would involve taxpayer-funded lobbying associations such as the National Association of Counties and the National Governors Association.

This is only an idea right now, but there is little doubt that it is possible. What could be potentially in doubt is whether the participating government agencies would be transparent… about the creation of the transparency tool. With taxpayer-funded lobbying associations, which have to be forced to share information and hardly ever do it willfully, this may be a great opportunity to get them to practice what they preach.

Regardless, it seems that innovation in transparency will continue, inspiring some governments to take small steps with big and symbolic outcomes, and improving the quality of the information we already have. We look forward to seeing what comes next.

New Hampshire case opens up taxpayer-funded lobbying associations

Sunshine Review has been following the difficulties in tracking taxpayer-funded lobbying associations. Tracking taxpayer-funded lobbying can be difficult because of the broad nature of lobbying. But it is the fact that these organizations have a complete lack of accountability to taxpayers which is a more insurmountable obstacle. The public has, as of yet, lacked the ability to demand transparency from them.

That may soon change. According to a New Hampshire court, when a nonprofit is largely paid for with government dollars, the nonprofit is subject to public agency disclosure requirements.

The New Hampshire firefighters union, concerned about potential corruption in a taxpayer-funded lobbying association, went to court asking for a list of the Local Government Center of New Hampshire salaries. The LGC is the home of the state’s association of municipalities, what Sunshine Review considers a taxpayer-funded lobbying association.
The association argued its salaries are not subject to public interest disclosure because it is a nonprofit.

In the end, however, the state supreme court ruled against the LGC, concluding the wages of the organization’s staff are paid for mostly by tax dollars and the work of the organization are programs for the benefit ultimately of taxpayers. Therefore, disclosure laws apply.

Transparency advocates should rejoice! It is, of course, perfectly reasonable that a nonprofit should try and keep the confidential information of its donors private. However, as far as keeping how taxpayer dollars are spent from the taxpayers, that is unacceptable. And New Hampshire citizens will now be able to do something about that.

Similarly, New Hampshire state legislator, Democratic State Representative Dick Watrous, had introduced a bill to compel the state’s nonprofits to affirmative disclosure. This would mean that taxpayer-funded lobbying associations would be included in state freedom of information act laws. The Watrous bill would have classified nonprofits as public agencies if they exceeded $100,000 in annual revenue and got half of their funding from state or local government. But the bill failed last week, with the New Hampshire House voting 214 to 80 to kill bill.

Nonprofits in New Hampshire were naturally united in opposition to the Watrous bill, declaring that the bill would have been a “huge burden” on nonprofits. Additionally, the associations stated:
*Nonprofits are “all about transparency,” making the bill unnecessary
*The disclosure requirements, including financial disclosure, would make people less willing to serve on nonprofit boards if they knew they could come under increased public scrutiny.

The Nonprofit Quarterly, the source of this news, states:

“All about transparency” counter-arguments don’t ring true about a sector that is as diverse as ours, particularly when some nonprofits are created or function to camouflage government activity.

By doing so, the journal brings back the focus on what we ought to be talking about: Right to know. All too often, government entities and, in this case, taxpayer-funded lobbying associations, use the inconvenience of delivering information as an argument against being held accountable. Hiding behind their 501(c) status, the associations feel as though their benign existence justifies their laziness in transparency.

However, it is clear that the activities of such organizations are largely funded by taxpayer dollars. Therefore, taxpayers have a right to know where this money is going. Perhaps these funds are being used in completely legitimate ways. But without having information that lets taxpayers know exactly what is going on with their money, there is no way of knowing.

The following questions have yet to be resolved, as listed in the Nonprofit Quarterly:

*When is a nonprofit organization sort of like a public agency for the purpose of levels of transparency and disclosure beyond what all nonprofits provide to the IRS in their Form 990s?

*At what point does the proportion of a nonprofit’s budget that comes from governmental funds make the nonprofit subject to public sector right-to-know laws?

*What kind of activities might a nonprofit do that would be considered “the public’s business?”

We hope to find out the answers to these questions, and if other state courts repeat the decision made in New Hampshire, we as citizens may have the tools to do this without obstacles.