GCS scores C minus on online transparency with John Locke Foundation
Update: Story here.
Also, a response from Sharon Ozment, chief finance officer with GCS:
"Let me begin by saying that Guilford County Schools (GCS) is continually looking for ways to improve communication and information sharing. We will contact the John Locke Foundation and ask which districts are getting a grade of A and review their respective Web sites to determine what GCS might do differently with respect to online transparency.
"I will hasten to add that the 'Superintendents' Recommended 2008-09 Budget' is currently on our Web site. We will also add our financial audit for the year ended June 30, 2007 as well. With that said, it is important to note that we often have discussions about how best to communicate and share information and much like students with different learning styles, our citizens have different preferences as to how to receive information. It would be interesting to find out how many school districts in NC conduct a line-item review of their budget that is televised live and broadcast at least two other times after the fact. There are also some external measures by which we assess the quality of our financial documents and operations."
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The Johne Locke Foundation issued a report today that graded local governments on how transparent their budget and spending information is on their Web sites. Guilford County Schools scored a C minus. Scores ranged from C to F.
Go the the GCS Web site and you can easily find the superintendent's budget recommendations and brief annual report. Not so with the line item budget or the annual financial audit. Want to find out how much in federal dollars each Title 1 school gets? Good luck.
To GCS's credit, school officials do link many documents on the Board of Education's agenda, but it takes a saavy user to track those documents down, especially months or years after the fact.
Budget information can get tedious and complicated but that is no excuse not to provide more information online, particularly the final editions of the local, state and federal budgets. The district also should post quarterly cashflow bond forecasts, such as this one for the 2003 bond.
What would you want to see online?
By the way, the new district relations officer, Lekan Oguntoyinbo, started today. He replaces Sonya Conway, who left in March to work for American Express. Any questions for him?
Comments (3)
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I want all info available to be easily accessible for the public, after all we are the ones that foot the bill.
BTW- how are the writing scores for the county. They were received last week.
Posted on May 19, 2008 3:05 PM
Debora,
I called about the scores. I was told that Dr. Zhang is working on them as they are not in a reportable format and they should be ready next week.
Posted on May 19, 2008 4:03 PM
Having budget information is fine, but that doesn't tell the tale. What we need online is information about how the district actually spent the money. As we have seen, money can be spent in many ways different than how it is budgeted by moving it around after the budget is approved.
In order to achieve more transparency, some districts are putting their check register online. In this manner, residents and taxpayers can see how budget money is actually used. This is highly doable as other districts have done so. This has been recommended to some of the board members, but it has been met with indifference. If the check register is online for al to see, it might be that some people at GCS might give a second thought to how they spend the citizens' tax money. More transparency would be nice in what is essentially a translucent organization.
Posted on May 20, 2008 8:56 AM