Lakewood activist Natalie Menten has updated her website on Jeffco school district credit card transactions.   Natalie submited a CORA request to Jeffco school district for all credit card purchases from January 2007 throught August 2008.  Visitors can research credit card spending by vendor or by purchaser.  It’s pretty remarkable, all thanks to the efforts of Natalie Menten. 

Neither CoST nor Natalie imply that all the transactions are simply examples of wasteful spending.  But it’s legitimate to ask why some transactions have no descriptions; or why on July 10, 2008 $410.59 was spent on “coffee” at Starbucks: or why $785.70 was spent on “breakfast back to school” at The Pines at Genesee.  During July 2008 Jeffco employees made credit card purchases at 940 different vendors.  This was discovered from a brief review of one month.

The point is that if school districts are so strapped for cash, maybe they should review some of these purchases for “staff lunches” and other things.  A few thousand dollars each month equates to one additional teacher or a couple of additional teacher aids or more text books.  This is why we need transparency.  As Natalie says on her website, “It becomes very easy to spend someone else’s money, unless that someone is watching.”  If government entities know we are watching their spending, they will be more prudent and everyone wins.

Remember: No taxation without information!