10
Transparency continued from page 8
Lovejoy ISD has developed a Leadership Lovejoy course aimed at developing ambassadors in the community who can advocate for the district. Principals can nominate parents who are involved at their campus.
“ We’ ve always done a course on the budget cycle for the school board and campus principals and secretaries,” Adams said.“ We took that and pared it down for the public. It’ s another avenue that allows parents to identify with the district leadership and gives a deeper level of information to the community.
Adams cautioned, though:“ Being transparent is an investment of time and staff, but you have to measure the cost of putting the information out there and in what way. Many districts have limited resources.”
Financial Disclosures For most people, transparency typically equates to financial transparency, and it is certainly a large part of it. After all, public schools are just that – funded in large part by taxpayers and thus accountable for those funds to the taxpayers.
Each district has certain financial disclosures it is required to make per state and federal law. The Texas Association of School School Business Officials maintains a checklist of required and optional postings on district websites from budget and purchasing information to tax rates and utilities data.( www. tasbo. org / tools-templates)
“ The most transparent document we have relates to our budget process,” said Michele Trongaard, assistant superintendent for finance and operations at Wylie ISD, about the district’ s official budget book.“ It documents how much we spend per campus and in what areas.”
Because the book is posted on the district’ s website( www. wylieisd. net / Page / 1525), anyone can delve into the document and view each campus’ scores, staffing ratios, and so on. A CPA, Trongaard first put the document together for 2008 – 09 to learn more about the district’ s budget process; her superintendent had come from a district with a
similar document and supported her effort.“ It’ s a lot of work. I learned so much about the district doing this,” she said.
One of the main transparency challenges for school districts is conveying financial information in a way that the public actually understands due to the complexities of school finance. This is especially important for bond package elections, where public support is crucial.
That’ s why having that ongoing dialogue with the community is so important, said Wilson.“ From a district perspective, if you wait until you have a bond package to start engaging with your community, you’ ve waited too long.”
Third-Party Recognition Posting trusted third-party accolades, strong accountability ratings, and good audit reports on the district website are other ways to show your district is being a responsible public entity.
“ I think sharing third-party links— whether to the Comptroller’ s Office, the TEA, an independent auditor’ s report— are meaningful to the public,” said Adams, who admitted to being thrilled when third-party experts come in because she’ s proud to share her team’ s work.
Trongaard agreed:“ They can help with your credibility and trust with the public.”
The Texas Comptroller’ s Office has the Transparency Stars program( see sidebar) that recognizes government entities that go above and beyond in their transparency efforts.
Schools FIRST( Financial Integrity Rating System of Texas) offers another good financial transparency indicator to share with the public, Trongaard added. The rating system has been in place since 1999 when it was instituted by the TEA in response to Senate Bill 875 in the 76th Texas Legislature.
One drawback is that a public hearing notice regarding the rating must be placed in the local newspaper, which has become an archaic— and often expensive— communications method.“ If we could just post to the Internet, it would save money,” Trongaard said.
TASBO, in partnership with the Texas Schools Public Relations Association, created a communications toolkit( www. tasbo. org / schools-first) to help districts in developing the required annual financial management report that must be provided to taxpayers who attend Schools FIRST public hearings or request a copy. TASBO also provides a Schools FIRST template to help districts understand how there day to day decisions will impact their financial ratings.
“ Public schools are doing great things,” Adams said,“ but we can’ t count on others, like the press, to share our good news. Transparency is one way we can do that.”
Since 2008, Wylie ISD has posted their district’ s official budget book, which documents how much they spend per campus and in what areas.
TASBO REPORT | AUG 2017