COST actually agrees with State Senate President Brandon Shaffer.  The Democrat legislative committee chairs desperately need some training on how to treat the public! 
In an article explaining how Shaffer spent $4300 in taxpayer money to pay for a Democrats-only retreat, the Colorado Springs Gazette reports that Shaffer ”organized the retreat partly because of complaints about committee chairs being disrespectful to [...]

Greeley Evans District Six, the largest Colorado school district ever to be placed on accreditation watch, wants more money.  According to the Greeley Tribune the district is asking for a mill levy override to fund $32 million in various projects. 
With a bad economy, a mill levy override is going to be a tough sell.  But [...]

If it has to do with showing taxpayers how their money is spent, then the teachers’ union doesn’t like it.
According to the Colorado Secretary of State Web site, the Colorado Education Association, a taxpayer-funded lobbying organization, has taken a stance against HB 1288 the Colorado Taxpayer Transparency Act.  It seems odd that a lobbying organization that exists [...]

The democrats on the House Education committee may have killed the legislation but they cannot kill the momentum for transparency.   Our friend Ben DeGrow alerted us to an article in American Thinker that asks the same question COST does nearly everyday:
in Colorado, Senate Bill 57, also called the Public School Financial Transparency Act, which simply [...]

Citing the defeat of SB 57 School Spending Transparency and Governor Ritter’s weak attempt at transparency, in her YourHub article, Linda Sasenick asks a reasonable question: “Who’s afraid of Transparency?” 
Generally it’s those with something to hide. Linda names those she believes have something to hide, “it seems the Governor, legislators, and education union and school board lobbyists want to [...]

If a picture is worth thousand words, than COST should stop writing and let Benjamin Hummel capture all COST ramblings in cartoon form! Remember, the education lobby killed SB 57 but it claims to support it.  Mr. Hummel illustrates what the education lobby means when it says “we support transparency.”

On Thursday, March 19, at 1:30 p.m. SB 57 will be heard in the House Education Committee in HCR 0112.  Opponents of transparency have been working hard to get this legislation killed.  Primarily the opposition has come from some school district administrators and their lobbyists.  Officially the Colorado Education Association (the teachers’ union) has taken a [...]

COST has learned that the Colorado Association of School Executives (CASE) discussed how to defeat SB 57, the popular, common sense legislation that would provide financial transparency to public K-12 education.  It seems that CASE is sensitive to the public relations nightmare of opposing transparency so its members are trying to figure out how to kill the [...]

The Public School Spending Transparency Act will be heard in House Education Committee on Thursday, March 19 at 1:30 p.m.  A list of membership and contact information is below. Transparency advocates are meeting in the basement of the Capitol at 1 p.m.
SB 87, which would provide additional accountability for Special Districts, passed out of the Senate 35-0.  [...]

Maybe.
COST learned that while Independence Institute Investigative Reporter Todd Shepherd was doing some research on school district expenditures he discovered that several districts paid Office Depot more than $250,000 for supplies between July and December 2008. 
That’s doesn’t necessarily raise any red flags unless you are Todd and know that the giant office supplies retailer “has been or is being investigated by a total [...]