My state, NH, is finally starting to do it. The municipal side of my Town does.
School Board? Nope. I hope my School Board decides, at some point, to do so instead of saying: "It would take too much!" (my response is "Nonsense – and it doesn’t matter because it ain’t your money to begin with". And I have asked in the past).
In an effort to be transparent in the district’s budget transactions, the Wichita Public Schools launched its District Checkbook on its website. Superintendent John Allison made the announcement during the South Central Legislative Delegation meeting at Wichita State University on January 6.
“Many community members ask questions about school budgets, and this is a way to allow taxpayers to review transactions by month for the fiscal year, to see which fund is used, and the function for that transaction,” said Superintendent Allison.
The District Checkbook shows every item the district purchases and what the purchases were for including instruction, support and bond construction. The items are reported by the categories defined by the State of Kansas and the categories are consistent throughout Kansas’ school districts.
“The Wichita Public Schools has long been a leader in this state on sharing budget information,” Superintendent Allison added. “For example, the district created the Budget At A Glance booklet which later became a template for the entire state so all districts could produce similar information.”
The District Checkbook is available at www.finance.usd259.org.
Ah yes -> crowdsourcing auditing. All it would take now is one hyper-focus blogger watching and cross-tabulating to catch malfeasance.
Want to know more? Go visit our friend Peyton Wolcott.
