School transparency bill advances to House

Face The State Staff Report

After a rigorous debate Friday, the School Finance Transparency Act passed a second reading on the Senate floor with strong bipartisan support.

HarveySpecial to FTS

Amendments and delays had previously bogged down Senate Bill 57, which would require school districts to put their check registers online. Though basic budget information is already public, proponents of the bill testified during an initial committee hearing last month that the information is weighty and often very confusing. Sen. Ted Harvey, R-Highlands Ranch, and Rep. Amy Stephens, R-Monument, are sponsoring the bill.

“If you can’t defend it, don’t spend it,” Harvey said, quoting a common motto of transparency proponents. “It’s the taxpayers’ money.”

Harvey said that under his bill it would be harder for dubious expenses to go unnoticed, such as two lunches for $103 between Sen. Evie Hudak, D-Arvada, and Jeffco Superintendent Cindy Stevenson. Harvey exposed Hudak’s lunches during the bill’s committee hearing when Hudak was arguing strongly against the measure. Though Hudak had no response at the time, her face became visibly red.

Hudak and fellow Democrat Sen. Bob Bacon of Fort Collins, were two of the most outspoken opponents of the measure. Both have strong ties to the Colorado Education Association. When the Senate Education Committee was considering the legislation, Bacon amended it to make the transparency part optional by “encouraging” districts to put spending online instead of “requiring” it, but the bill was restored to its original form prior to its Senate passage.

The bill will face a third and final reading in the Senate before heading to the House for consideration.