This argument was cited on editorial page of the Washington DC National Examiner

OPAQUE EDUCATION & TAXPAYER TRANSPARENCY

By Adam Andrzejewski
February 11, 2008

In Illinois and America, two stalwart traditions stand shoulder to shoulder:  public education and the ownership of private property.  In Illinois, these two traditions are intertwined.  To a large degree, private property taxes fund public education.  With the Illinois pride of local control, schools are financed by hometown homeowners and local commercial property owners.

However,  viewed through the lens of transparency, the relationship between private property owners and public education begins to look more incongruent!  Private property owners are fully transparent while it is obvious that public education is not.  Transparency has been shown the backseat on the school bus.

The private property information of Illinois is fully searchable and reveals all transaction data.  Found in most libraries, the Illinois public records database is an online records bank.  The database contains such information as owners’ name, address, date of sale, square footage, number of bathrooms, bedrooms, and lot size of any property.  Unbeknownst to most people, the database even details personal information such as the purchase price, down payment and initial mortgage amount. 

Via the internet and your local library, requests about private property information are not stalled or given wait time.  In the information age, one need not even visit the county courthouse or even know the property’s taxpayer identification number.  Thanks to the internet, private property owners in Illinois are instantly searchable and fully transparent! 

By contrast, the education establishment is not always transparent.  Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests can take weeks and months to fulfill.  Using FOIA, requesters are asked to pay copying charges and employee time charges potentially running into the many hundreds of dollars.  Many times, the only hope to access requested information is to sue the school district.  Who has the personal resources to “fight city hall”?

 In fact, the Better Government Association did a FOIA study in Illinois and found that only 29 times out of every 100 requests was the school district forthcoming with the information!  School districts were one of the most egregious offenders of the FOIA!  Unfortunately, stalling, waiting, and sitting on FOIA requests is an all too common method used by school districts to stifle honest requests from their taxpayers. 

Within this system, how can true “local control” of school districts be a reality when the necessary information is either not forthcoming or takes so much time to access?

Existing Illinois law is good.  Actual access to the lawful information is extremely poor.  One simple and direct solution exists in Illinois:  POST THE CHECK REGISTER OF THE SCHOOL DISTRICT ON THE INTERNET!

In Illinois, no fresh legislation needs to be adopted.  Under current Illinois law, all information is currently “available” to the public by way of the Freedom of Information Act.  Check registers are electronic documents and only have to be converted into a PDF document, so the expense for posting is minimal. Moreover, creation of the PDF and posting it to the internet can be accomplished in less than five minutes, so employee time for posting is minimal.

In the age of information, internet technology has instantaneously placed all private information into the hands of the requester. The time has now arrived where school districts should harness the same technology to insure the property taxpayer that their money is spent wisely!

Confidence in efficiency and frugality of the school district would accrue to the benefit of all.  A bond of trust and support for education can be generated.   No law needs to be changed.  Access needs to be adopted.

POST THE CHECK REGISTERS ON THE INTERNET!
For The Good Of Illinois