Colorado Spending Transparency

Amy Oliver sent an email to DPS Emergency Financial manager Robert Bobb inquiring about transparency in the Detroit Public School system. 

Amy’s email asked, “Why do you embrace transparency? How did you become convinced that it would help the Detroit Public School system?  How will you pay to put the information online?”

Steven Wasko, Executive Director of the Office of Public Relations, responded:

It is imperative for our success that all constituents are provided the opportunity to be informed, and a true sense of transparency involves not only making all of our actions public but also instilling a sense that all credible feedback is thoroughly reviewed and acted upon.  Engaging our stakeholders, indeed, means making all of our finances, reports, orders and communications public, but that would be nothing but another example of one hand clapping if there are not specific and vital ways for the community to engage in developing an overall vision of 21st Century education for its children.

At thi point in DPS (Detroit Public Schools), we are researching the feasibility of placing our checkbook online.  In response to a constituent question on an anonymous email/hotline that was set up, Emergency Financial manager Robert Bobb has directed our IT department to research and report back on the steps that it would take to achieve this.

Other examples of documents which we immediately placed on our website are requests made to the State of Michigan, and their response.

Mr. Wasko explains how the idea came about (an anonymous email) and why the district embraces transparency but doesn’t address Amy’s question about cost.  COST assumes that if transparency is a priority, then even a district with serious financial issues will figure out to provide expenditures online in an easily accessible format.  It seems that DPS realizes that engaging “stakeholders” will help rather than hinder the struggling district.  Again, COST wishes Detroit Public Schools the best of luck because kids’ futures are at stake.

COST is impressed with Robert Bobb, the new Fiscal Manager for Detroit Public Schools (DPS).  According to the Detroit Free Press, Bobb “will place its financial records in plain sight, online, so that tax-payers can follow every dollar.”

DPS is a district in financial turmoil with a “shameful” history of record keeping that includes an inability to maintain a proper paper trail for its debts.  Apparently DPS right now owes “at least $72 million in vending services that have been outstanding 30 days or longer.”

Bobb is confident that he can get DPS’s fiscal house in order and bring transparency to the district within the next year.  Bobb’s desire to bring transparency to DPS stands in stark contrast to Colorado’s education establishment.

COST looks forward to tracking transparency in Detroit Public Schools and wishes Colorado’s school districts would make the same kind of commitment.