State Controller’s Office Publishes Data on Education Spending and Employee Pay
The Idaho State Controller’s Office has expanded its Transparent Idaho website to provide detailed data on how schools and districts have spent public funds and pay their employees. This move aims to increase transparency and empower the public to make informed decisions about their government.
- The Idaho State Controller’s Office has published public records and data about state government on Transparent Idaho since 2012.
- However, the effort to expand transparency to local governments has been growing in recent years.
- The Idaho Legislature passed House Bill 73 in 2021, which requires uniform accounting, budgeting, and financial reporting procedures for Idaho cities, counties, and urban renewal districts.
- This information has been added to Transparent Idaho, previously reported by the Idaho Capital Sun.
Additional Transparency for Local Governments
In October, the Idaho Capital Sun reported that financial data for 198 Idaho cities is now available on Transparent Idaho. The state controller, Brandon Woolf, stated that the office’s vision has always been to include local governments on the platform. Woolf said, “We’ve had state data for 10-plus years, but our vision has always been to have local governments on Transparent Idaho as well.”
“The public being able to track and trace and understand where the taxpayers’ money is being spent can go a long way to helping set the right types of policy and making good policy decisions,”
Brandon Woolf, Idaho State Controller
The Idaho State Controller’s Office announced the latest addition to Transparent Idaho, which includes new education financial data. This data includes detailed enrollment figures, workforce salary data, and transactions made by education providers, such as school districts and public charter schools.
Building Trust and Empowering the Public
Woolf emphasized that publishing the data is not intended to be a “gotcha” for public school districts and charter schools. Instead, he stated that it can help build trust with Idahoans and encourage the public to become informed and engaged with their government and the decisions policymakers make. The education data is already publicly available. School districts are required by law to post it on their own websites, and Idaho Education News has been publishing enrollment, salary data, test scores, per-pupil expenditures, higher education go-on rates, and more on its education data site for years. However, publishing the education data on Transparent Idaho brings together education transparency data for public schools, districts, and public charter schools in one place, alongside other financial transparency data related to state government, cities, and counties.
| Key Features | Description |
|---|---|
| Public Funding | Data only includes schools, districts, and charter schools that receive public funding. |
| Demographic Information | Demographic data, such as enrollment figures and workforce salary data, is available. |
| Data Visualization Tools | Tools to help the public make comparisons between schools and districts. |
Next Steps
Woolf plans to add additional demographic information and data visualization tools to Transparent Idaho in the future. The goal is to provide the public with more data to make apples-to-apples comparisons between schools and districts. The new education data is available free of charge on the Transparent Idaho website, https://transparent.idaho.gov.
Why Transparency Matters
Transparent Idaho only publishes data about schools, districts, and charter schools that receive public funding. Data for private schools, homeschool programs, and other private education choice programs do not appear on the platform. The state controller, Brandon Woolf, stated, “The public being able to track and trace and understand where the taxpayers’ money is being spent can go a long way to helping set the right types of policy and making good policy decisions.”
Conclusion
The expanded Transparency Idaho platform provides a more comprehensive view of public school finances and employee pay. The data is now available in one place, alongside other financial transparency data related to state government, cities, and counties. The state controller’s office aims to continue improving the platform to provide the public with more information and tools to make informed decisions about their government.
