How the government spends money matters. It matters because it’s the people’s money, given to meet essential needs and priorities with an expectation of prudence and responsibility.

That’s what led the Louisiana Legislature several years ago to create Louisiana Checkbook, a searchable website allowing citizens to track expenditures, funding sources, contracts, economic incentives, and more. Users are able to access detailed information on how and where taxpayer dollars are being spent across state government.

But a few years ago, lawmakers, advocates, and several public policy and good government organizations including the Pelican Institute noted that the site didn’t include government-run schools at a time when many were questioning how money was being spent to advance student achievement, fund teacher pay raises, improve school bus transportation, and more. Aside from making a formal public records request, which can be time consuming, expensive, and intimidating, there was no easy way for citizens to see how public schools are funded and spending those funds.

In 2021, then Representative Rick Edmonds introduced House Bill 38, which would have added public schools to Louisiana Checkbook. The bill was vetoed by Governor John Bel Edwards in response to opposition by some school system leaders.

In 2022, Representative Edmonds introduced a re-worked bill, requiring public school systems to submit the same information and authorizing the State Treasurer to post it online on a user-friendly website. The bill stalled in the Senate.

But in 2023, House Bill 462 was passed—by a vote of 97-1 in the House and 37-1 in the Senate—signaling a strong commitment to transparency and accountability for how the state’s government-run schools are using tax dollars to educate Louisiana’s children. It was signed into law as Act 370 and included this opening paragraph:

The legislature finds that public school governing authorities play a critical role in financial oversight of public schools and school districts; that taxpayers should have easy access to details regarding how public schools are spending public funds; that easy access to electronic financial data increases transparency in public school financial matters and increases community and parent involvement; and that the availability of certain fiscal information online would make it possible for citizens to accurately compare school budgets in both traditional public schools and public charter schools.

The law further directed each public school governing authority, including public school districts and charter school governing authorities, to post on their website their most recent budget and most recent annual independent audit each year; semiannual reports detailing actual revenue, receipts, expenditures, and disbursements; and information concerning contracts for each quarter, including the identity of each vendor, the purpose of each contract, and payments associated with each contract.

Public schools in Louisiana receive funding from local, state, federal, and private sources. The state funds public education at nearly $4.3 billion each year. And according to the National Center for Education Statistics, the federal government’s clearinghouse for education data, Louisiana spends more per student than any other state in the Southeast.

The law also required the Louisiana Department of the Treasury to provide an online tool for comparison of public school governing authority budgets and expenditures, in total and on a per-pupil basis.

Yesterday, Treasurer John Fleming and now Senator Rick Edmonds, chairman of the Senate Committee on Education, unveiled this online tool, which is available at https://www.treasury.la.gov. The portal not only allows users to explore all revenues and expenditures statewide and by school system; they can also perform a keyword search by category (e.g., “textbooks,” “transportation,” or “technology,”) and by vendor or contractor. The system allows for comparison among school systems, as well, and can display financial information alongside school performance indicators and rankings. The site can therefore serve as a helpful tool to school systems that may want to achieve greater efficiencies in certain areas by learning how their peers have been successful in doing so.

Treasurer Fleming noted that the website has been called the most comprehensive K-12 education transparency tool in the United States, and he acknowledged the hard work of the Louisiana Department of Education and local school systems in working over the past year to submit the required information and establish routine process of keeping it up-to-date. “The website is user friendly, providing accessibility to detailed financial information. This allows Louisiana citizens to determine how every penny of their tax dollar is being spent on behalf of the students of our state.”