Open School Books in North Dakota

Published on Wednesday, August 20, 2008
ARTICLES

"I used it this morning."

That was Wayne Sanstead's answer when a Grand Forks Herald reporter asked if he had seen the Sunshine on Schools website. Sanstead is the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction Superintendent. Launched by the North Dakota Policy Council in April 2008, Sunshine on Schools is an interactive site that contains all K-12 school district budgets in the state.

Several months prior, in June 2007, the North Dakota Policy Council proposed that the state legislature enact a law that required school districts to put all of their budget data online. The feedback from school administrators and legislators: The resources did not exist to undertake such a project. Thus, NDPC decided to do it. Overall, it only took $35,000 and about six months to create the SoS website. (With NDPC assistance, other state institutes could experience proportionally shorter completion times.)

NDPC created the site to help policymakers and taxpayers better understand the facts surrounding North Dakota's two biggest political issues: property taxes and K-12 education funding. Everyone knows what the political parties are saying, but fewer know the facts. Sunshine on School presents all of the boring numbers in easy-to-read charts and graphs.

Benefits of Local Focus

Many state-focused think tanks have begun tackling government transparency and accountability projects at the state level. NDPC started at the local level for a couple reasons. First, going after the state budget would have been a significant endeavor for our organization; thus we opted to proceed with a scaled-down transparency project.

A second good reason for NDPC to begin at the local level: North Dakota property taxes are rising fast. Property taxation occurs at the most local levels of government, so starting there made the most sense. As is said, all politics is local.

In retrospect, three key benefits were derived from starting at the bottom, so to speak. One, NDPC has been able to run a low-cost Beta test for similar larger-scale projects. Two, contrary to early public servant feedback, we were able to demonstrate that transparent, open-government projects can be done inexpensively. Finally, NDPC's credibility has been enhanced, which should make it easier to fundraise for other local government and state government transparency projects.

Sunshine on Schools features

In developing the SoS website, NDPC listened to prospective customers. When NDPC initially sought input from school board members and administrators many of them mentioned that they knew their district's financial status, but were unaware of how they compared to neighboring districts. So, we added a feature that allows users to select up to five school districts to compare.

The same school officials also wondered where their school districts ranked in terms of mills levied, revenue, expenditures and cost-per-pupil. Therefore, in customer-friendly fashion, NDPC created a "State Rankings" page that lists the school districts by rank in these and other categories.

In addition to the above, the Sunshine on Schools site includes:

• Current and historical district revenues and expenditures, categorized
• Current and historical enrollment
• Proficiency scores
• Faculty totals with average faculty salaries and benefits
• Student-to-teacher ratios
• District debt
• Local revenue per pupil state rankings

Sunshine on Schools will soon be updated. To be added first are:

• Individual teacher and administrative salaries
• Assessment score rankings
• Enrollment by geographic region

The SoS site is flexible in its construction allowing NDPC to continually add more features and data. As before, we remain open to suggestions for improvement. In other words, SoS is market-based and driven.

A judgment-free, "go-to" site

In developing and maintaining the Sunshine on Schools site, we have consciously refrained from making judgments about the data on it. To remain credible, we thought it would be best to just display the data there and publish analyses of it on the North Dakota Policy Council website.

Credibility is paramount to our goal for Sunshine on Schools. We want it to be the "go-to" place for K-12 financial data. So far we believe SoS is well on its way to becoming that. The Sunshine on Schools website traffic to date reveals that the majority of visitors come from the State of North Dakota's server, which means that legislators and bureaucrats have taken notice. DPI's assistant director of school finance and organization told the Bismarck Tribune that he likes what we're doing.

One school superintendent told me that Sunshine on Schools was a "great source for information that is easily read and accessible to all." He went on to say, "All administrators, taxpayers and hopefully every legislator will have a shortcut icon shown on their desktop to access this useful information." Legislators, school administrators, school board members, journalists and taxpayers have all praised the website. Suffice it to say, the response to Sunshine on Schools has been overwhelmingly positive since it went live.

Repeat NDPC's feat

SoS took about six months to complete, a bit longer than anticipated, not because of technical complications, but because of informational hurdles. There was a lag time in getting Department of Public Instruction officials to explain their data. NDPC ran into another obstacle when DPI officials claimed that individual salaries were confidential; however, we engaged the state Attorney General's office and that roadblock was easily cleared away.

Minor inconveniences such as those just described are to be expected. The above notwithstanding, interested institutes should be able to duplicate NDPC's efforts with relative ease. One reason: Omnivect Inc., which completed the technical aspects of the SoS site, is willing to work with groups across the country to accomplish more transparent, more accountable government. Three SPN-affiliated institutes have already contacted NDPC about how to replicate what we've done.

Sunshine on Schools is part of a larger project aimed at getting all North Dakota local governments' budgets online. The NDPC plans to build similar websites for other governmental entities that could also be adapted to other states.

Interestingly, DPI Superintendent Sanstead's opponent in this year's election has questioned why the department does not have a similar website. DPI officials, who control nearly $1 billion per biennium, still insist the department doesn't have the resources to create such a site. This argument is repeated throughout the U.S. However, there is no need for state-focused institutes to lay down, rollover and accept such a cop-out. Nor must they repeatedly bang their heads against the wall until politicians and public servants acquiesce. Rather, as the North Dakota Policy Council has shown, institutes can build a private credible, go-to transparent government budget site without breaking the bank.

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Brett Narloch is the executive director of the N. Dakota Policy Council. Write him at brenarlo@policynd.org.