The state’s 2008-09 budget includes slightly more than $50 billion for the public education system, which serves roughly 4.6 million Texas children. While the Texas Education Agency’s actual spending is available online through the Texas Comptroller’s Where the Money Goes database, only about 160 of the state’s 1031 school districts make their district check registers available online. Today, these roughly 160 school districts represent 35 percent of the state’s student population and expenditures.
While more districts are beginning to post their check registers online, expanding this effort is important. Taxpayers across the state pay a hefty tab to support public education and deserve to know how those dollars are being spent.
A Brief History of School District Transparency
Texas has been a leader in open government and financial transparency when it comes to the state budget, and a growing number of local school districts are also working to make their expenditures public.
As property taxes have climbed to fuel increased education spending, more parents have begun asking schools to show where their tax dollars are actually spent and whether it was going to the classroom—where it is needed most. Since 2005, the push for school district transparency has evolved as several state lawmakers and taxpayers have made increased transparency in school spending a priority.
In 2005, Governor Rick Perry issued an executive order requiring 65 percent of school expenditures to be spent on instruction. To implement this executive order, the Texas Education Agency gave schools a three-year ramp up period to reach the 65 percent expenditure requirement. School districts had to ensure that 55 percent of their expenditures were spent on instruction in the 2006-2007 school year, 60 percent in 2007-2008, and to 65 percent in 2008-2009. TEA exempted school districts from meeting the “65 percent rule” if they would instead post their monthly check register and yearly payroll expenditures online.
Parents and activists began asking school districts to make this information available online, even if the district met the requirements of the 65 percent rule. Each month, new school districts chose to post their check register online. Today, more than 150 school districts post their check registers online, up from only a handful of school districts in early 2007. The transparency movement has taken off from only a few schools posting their check register online in early 2007 to more than 60 schools by late 2007.
When the 80th Legislature convened in January 2007, State Representative Bill Zedler filed legislation requiring all school districts to post their check register online by 2009. HB 2560 by Representative Zedler passed the Texas’ House of Representatives, but did not pass the Senate amid school district protests about the cost of posting their records online.
When the Texas Legislature meets again in January 2009, school district transparency is certain to be an issue again. Until then, school districts are choosing to make their check registers public without a legislative mandate, though often in response to taxpayer requests for such information to be made public.