• Update
• National News
• World News

A bill forcing schools to post its financial records online died in the state House Education Committee yesterday. 

Senate Bill 57, known as the “Public School Financial Transparency Act,” failed in an 8-5 vote.

The bill, co-sponsored by Sens. Ted Harvey, R-Highlands Ranch, Mike Kopp, R-Littleton, and Rep. Amy Stephens, R-Monument, would have required school districts to create a searchable online database of school revenues and expenditures. 

Stephens said she was shocked after the vote.

“Coloradans deserve to know where their education tax dollars are being spent,” Stephens said in a press release. “Increasing government transparency increases accountability and provides citizens with an effective tool to monitor, support and have an open dialogue with their government. It is shocking that majority Democrats refuse to open up the books of these schools”

There is a national emphasis on government accountability and spending transparency as the public has shown frustration with massive bank bailouts and anger towards corporate greed. Locally, SB 57 seemed to have built on that emphasis, Stephens argued.

“As I have travelled throughout my district and across the state, I hear more and more from people who want and expect greater transparency in state government,” Stephens said. “SB 57 would have been a major victory for taxpayers by taking us one step closer to achieving that goal.”

But those who opposed the bill were concerned about the financial impacts on school districts. Some believed the bill would have been an unfunded mandate on school districts to build a Web site at their expense without state or federal help. 

The cost to compile a financial record database could be significant during a time of budget shortfalls and cutbacks. The Colorado Association of School Executives (CASE) told the Denver Daily News before the vote yesterday that it was against the legislation, and they have drawn a distinction between transparency and unnecessary use of resources.

“We are opposed to the bill, but we are not opposed to financial transparency,” said Bruce Caughey, deputy executive director of CASE. “There is already information made available to the public that provides clear information on district budgets. This requirement will be taking away money that could be spent in classrooms. I was talking to a CFO of a district in Colorado Springs – they have about 10,000 expenditure transactions per month, and the amended version of this bill would require each transaction to have a notation on it. This will be a major resource requirement at a time when we are cutting budgets.”

Proponents of the bill argued that the transparency would have saved money in the long run.

“This gives school districts the opportunity to be more competitive,” said Amy Oliver, director of operation for the Independence Institute, before the vote yesterday. “Vendors will be able to see what districts are paying and may be able to offer the same service for a better price.”

Oliver went on to say that since the bill died, school districts face the possibility of private citizens putting school spending figures of their choosing online, since it is public information, which may not paint the full picture.

“The transparency train has left the station,” she said. “They (districts) can either be on board and be influential or have a hundred activists putting up their own site using only the information that they find relevant.” 

Add a new comment... Spammers: links do not work and our site gets monitored for spam daily and your comments will be removed -- please do not spam our site!

Your Name:

Your Email:

Title:

Comments:

Please copy the characters from this image into the box below. All characters are either numbers 1-9 (not zero) or letters (upper and lowercase). If you cannot read this image, you can click it to try a different image (most browsers). Otherwise, submit the page anyway and try again.

Image Text: