Go, David! CCSD Dollar Transparency Wanted

CCSD School Board member David Engelman made a reasonable request at the Board's last meeting: show everyone where the money is going. What a thought!

As reported in Sunday's P & C,

Charleston County School District spends more taxpayers' dollars than any other Lowcountry agency, but finding out how that money is spent can be difficult.

Anyone can ask the school district to provide that information, but one county school board member wants to make it easier for the public to access the district’s financial records. David Engelman asked the board earlier this week to begin posting its expenses online.

Engelman asked for all expenses to be listed, from grants to contract payments to electricity bills to association dues. The only exception, he said, would be salaries.

“I think we owe that to the people who pay for the budget,” he said. “I do think a lot of taxpayers want to see what’s going on at the local and state levels. That’s how we keep people honest.”

The effort to make financial records more transparent in schools and other government agencies is happening across the state and country. On the federal level, the Web site www.usaspending.gov gives details on government grants and contracts. On the state level, Gov. Mark Sanford issued an executive order nearly a year ago that required his 15 Cabinet agencies and the Comptroller General’s Office to create and post an online, searchable database of travel, office supplies and other expenses. The Comptroller General’s Office now has that information, searchable by year and month, for all of the state’s agencies.

Won't it be fun to see what excuses 75 Calhoun can engender? We'll see how creative they really are.