According to the Wednesday edition of the Dallas Morning News, large public school districts in Texas are starting to post their checkbook registers online.
Apparently, in Texas, their governor has signed an Executive Order that all public schools must devote 65% of their total budget to instruction. If that order had been in effect here in 2005, the five District 211 high schools would have put much more money into the classroom instead of into the administrative offices, because in 2005, District 211 only put 57.8% of its budget into the classroom.
Peyton Wolcott is quoted in the article and seems to be the person doing the most to push the idea of financial transparency through asking school districts to place their checkbook registers online.
Putting the District 211 checkbook register online would promote greater transparency and trust. I’d like to see the school board candidates get behind this idea.
March 8, 2007 at 8:25 pm
Most distirct don’t want the transparency and will fight it tooth and nail. I have been making a FOIA request to get the school board packets from every school board meeeting for both of my districts (46 and 127) here in Grayslake. 127 has been including the accounts payable and I have been placing them on my website (D127News.com) for everyone to see. District 46 however fought me for months, but I finally have some of them and will be posting them in the next day or so on D46News.com.
Keep up the good work. FOIA everything you can and put it on the web. They can provide many things electronically so you don’t have to scan them in.
How much does the district charge for a paper FOIA copy? They can only charge for the cost of reproduction, i.e. copier, paper, ink; no personnell costs. I just did a FOIA here becuase 46 went from 10 to 20 cents per page. What I found out was there cost is just over 7 cents per page. Of course they aren’t willingly lowering the price so I am forced to contact the Attorney General with my information.
Again, welcome aboard and ignore the rants of those who drink too much district Kool-Aid.
March 9, 2007 at 10:13 am
Thank you for the advice. Those are good questions and I don’t know the answers. I’ll work to find out.