School checkbook bill gets its fangs back

A bill to get school districts to put their checkbooks online got its teeth back today after a lengthy series of legislative acrobatics on the state Senate floor.

The bill, from Sen. Ted Harvey, R-Highlands Ranch, had been introduced as a mandatory measure, meaning districts would be required to put some type of log of their expenses and receipts online. That changed, though, in the Senate Education Committee, where Democrats made the reporting requirements optional but encouraged.

Enter a fiery Harvey this morning, who successfully ran an obstacle course of motions, amendments and negotiations to get the Education Committee changes stripped and the bill passed mostly as it was before.

Harvey said the bill, Senate Bill 57, is a necessary step toward transparency.

“This is a very important issue, and one of the greatest comments I heard at the microphone during the (committee) testimony was, ‘If you can’t defend it, don’t spend it,’” Harvey said. “... That’s all we’re asking for with this bill. Show us the money. It’s the taxpayers’ money.”

Democrats opposed to the bill – indeed a number of Democrats ended up ultimately voting for it in its mandatory form – raised two concerns. The first was that the legislature was passing on a somewhat unknown cost to school districts at a time when the districts are already having to slash their budgets.

Sen. Bob Bacon, D-Fort Collins, said making the bill’s requirements optional would allow the legislature to get a better handle on how much putting the checkbook online costs before mandating that all districts do it.

“Nothing is difficult, impossible or expensive to do by those who do not have to do it,” Bacon chided Republicans.

The second concern was that, by telling school districts what to do, the legislature was improperly intruding on the districts’ local control.

“In this case, I do like the idea of letting local school districts manage their business according to the wills and desires of the parents in the districts,” Senate Majority Leader Brandon Shaffer, D-Longmont, said. “... It’s funny, we’re all for local control down here until, well, we aren’t. In this case, I think we should let the school districts make the decision on their own.”

But Republicans ultimately prevailed by arguing that the requirements would be relatively easy to accomplish and not very costly and by making some small changes to the bill that placated at least a handful of Democrats. The start date of the requirements was pushed back a year, until September, 2011. And school districts, mostly in rural areas, without websites or interactive websites were granted an exemption.

“The argument against this bill, to me, is a hollow one,” Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction, said. “What are we afraid of?”

The bill still needs another approval in the Senate before heading over to the House and a whole new round of fighting.

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