Colorado Spending Transparency

Facing substantial budget cuts, Colorado’s K-12 education establishment may have to rethink how it spends money courtesy of the transparency movement we have championed.  Using transparency Web sites from Jeffco and Douglas County Schools as well as information from Denver Public Schools, the Denver Post found “found millions of dollars being spent with limited oversight on food, travel and other discretionary items.”

Among the expenses buried in the thousands of transactions: $270 for scented pencils for a Douglas County school, $1,228 for books at a Denver school from a company that uses color-scheme psychology, and $4,113 for doughnuts and burritos for breakfast meetings at a Denver high school

In response to the investigation, one school district already has changed its policies on spending. With ”so much charged in food, entertainment, travel and other discretionary items” Denver Public Schools “issued new rules for credit-card holders in response to The Post’s findings.”

For anyone interested in bringing transparency to their school district, Independence Institute policy analyst Ben DeGrow’s paper “What Should District Financial Transparency Look Like?” is a must read.

Some Colorado school districts aren’t waiting for the General Assembly to mandate financial transparency.  Greeley Evans School District Six in Northern Colorado has placed its check reigstry online.

But most impressive is what Colorado’s largest school district Jeffco Public Schools has provided for taxpayers on its financial transparency Web page.  Interested taxpayers set the date parameters, and then search Jeffco expenditures by vendor, account number, fund or department number.  The search results can be easily downloaded into an individual xcel file.  For instance, in just a matter of minutes COST determined that Jeffco spent $313,199.46 on meals/refreshments from July 1 to December 31, 2009.   It’s not up to COST to make a judgement on those expenditures.  That is the responsibility of Jeffco taxpayers.

We will however make a judgement on Jeffco’s transparency Web site, and we have yet to find a better one in the country.  COST believes Jeffco is on the cutting edge of transparency.  We encourage other school districts to take Jeffco’s lead and provide the same type of detailed financial transparency. 

The state of Colorado should take lessons as well.  Governor Bill Ritter’s transparency Web site TOP is an embarrassment.