Transparency Bills Clear Step One
Apr 24th, 2008 by Dave
The transparency package yesterday passed the House Education and House Administration Committees yesterday, and both were forwarded to the House Appropriations Committee. That’s the top-line story.
Now, for the ugly details.
I sat in the House Chamber for the House Education Committee hearing, where they discussed HB 337 & 338, which would put all school district spending and school contracts online. Some thoughts:
1. John Kowalko fought these good and open government bills tooth-and-nail, with silly assertions about stretching people too thin and about unfunded mandates. John, prevailing wage is an unfunded mandate on schools. Bluewater Wind is an unfunded mandate on ratepayers. This is a few lines of computer code that would lead to millions in savings like it has in every other state.
2. Diana McWilliams, Nancy Wagner, Terry Schooley and Nick Manolakos all added important ideas and questions to the discussion. Rep. Manolakos was a strong advocate, trying to share his experience in schools and convince the committee that the implementation of these systems would not be difficult or tremendously expensive.
2. The Department of Education rose to oppose the bill on the basis of the fiscal note being too expensive. A fiscal note, apparently, that only they had seen. Rep. Lavelle, the bill’s sponsor, was not told about the fiscal note until midway through the hearing, but the DOE already had seen it and made a decision that it was too expensive. So you know that the fiscal note “process” included a group of folks who were opposed to the bill and wanted to see the F/N come out as high as possible.
3. The only fiscal note we did receive was on HB 334, which creates the state budget database. A little background:
- The state of Texas implemented this database for $500,000.
- The state of Missouri did it for about $250,000, using existing staff.
- The state of Oklahoma is nearly finished with theirs for around $10,000, using existing staff.
- The federal government created USASpending.gov for $1,000,000, including the purchase of software from OMB Watch for $600,000. OMB Watch has now gone open source with that software, so the total cost for the federal government would have been $400,000.
Now, for the big reveal. What, you ask, was the fiscal note for HB 334?
$600,000.
The Office of Management and Budget wants you to believe that it would cost 50% more to create a searchable database for the state of Delaware than it did to create the same thing for the entire federal government. It’s no wonder we’re broke. The F/N adds three full time employees (2 at $85,000) and a host of other costs to create and maintain the database.
So, with the current fiscal note, there’s no way that the House Administration Committee will approve the legislation.
Death by fiscal note. At least that’s new.
None…
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“Death by fiscal note. At least that’s new.”
Right, and it’s a crying shame, shame on too many of our elected officials who really know better!!!
We need to continue the fight for transparency. The key is to get the Senate Rules changed to prevent one person from having the power to stand in the way of getting proposed legislation to the floor for a vote, and to permit last minute legislation to come up for a vote without time for adequate review.
I note that Senator Amick has had about enough of this crap; at age 60 he is calling a halt to 20 years of service out of frustration with this dictatorial system in our General Assembly. It sucks!!!
A GOP-run House committee is killing transparency on grounds of fiscal conservatism? The ironies are too twisted and numerous to count.
Are you guys really surrendering? If Republicans are serious about transparency, they need to go to war NOW. We’ll take care of Kowalko.
Can anybody put the fiscal note online? The devil is likely in the details. Lots of us out here have expertise in IT project management and estimating; give us a shot at it.
The problem (as I understand it, anyhow) is that the present financial system that the state uses is not made to handle something like this. Although, it couldn’t happen in real time, I don’t know why you just couldn’t do a daily (weekly, whatever) data dump into a database that is read-only and could then easily be put online. Very little cost for this.
I have the fiscal note. I’ll try to put it up today.
Mind you I think transparency is worth nearly any price.
But I am going to go out on a limb and guess that the fiscal note is probably very close to accurate on the costs. But the bill sponsors made some tactical errors by asking for too much all at once. The “costs too much” defense should have been foreseen (actually it was), and could easily have been defeated by more carefully drafted legislation.
Instead of falling in love with other states’ databases and benchmarking against them, the bills should have taken the current DE data structures and business processes into account and used them as the starting point.
Yes, for the state budget it should be easy to put SOME of that data online right now with a simple data extract. But the bill asks for more than what is easily available today (that’s my educated guess). That is what pumps up the fiscal note.
In particular I think 334 asked for too many data fields. If it was scaled back to require only the data fields that are easily accessible TODAY, the fiscal note would be negligible. Remember a few months ago I told you to “get a geek.”
Also remember DE is currently in the middle of implementing an enterprise accounting system. When that is done, the data will likely be all lined up and the marginal cost of dumping it online will be negligible. But in the current system, it really would be expensive to gather up all the fields required by 334.
And for the “checkbook” bills, the costs are even worse, because school IT and purchasing systems are vastly different. Implementing a modern system would mean rolling out not only new software, but new business processes in every school office and training the staff.
I guess someone in each district could type the checkbook data into a spreadsheet and upload it quarterly… that’s kind of a hamster-powered approach though. And at a time when schools are firing office help, I can see why there is resistance.
Dave,
Thank you for keeping the fight going !
They can get the money by trimming some fat at DOE.
Also, once DSTP is revised there will be a wind-fall savings by dumping Hartcourt Assesment keeper of DSTP.
http://kilroysdelaware.blogspot.com/2008/04/dave-burris-is-leading-fight-go-dave.html
The Delaware Financial Management System is a mess. We would save money by reforming it. It is unwieldy and inefficient. That is the reason school districts and charter schools run into problems. Even accountants don’t get it. That is why abuse can go undetected for so long.
Now, let’s be clear. The bill should be passed. 600k out of a 3 billion dollar budget is a worthy investment. Not to do it would be the proverbial save a penny and waste a pound.
Dave is right on his point though, the cost is rigged. Someone in the administration (not the house, Noman–the house does not do the fiscal analysis if my understanding is correct) is afraid of this bill and will do anything to undermine it. We need to take the new information and send it back to them while we keep moving the bill through.
the cost is rigged
We’ll see. I doubt it though, because to make the current IT system do what the bills ask would require a lot of Rube Goldberg work with paper clips and chewing gum.
Just guessing at some numbers to illustrate my point:
1. Right now, you can probably get 60% of the data for 10% of the cost of the FN.
2. When the new enterprise system is implemented, you can probably get 90% of the data for 50% of the cost of the FN.
It’s the marginal cost of getting those tougher data fields and relationships that raises the cost to the full price of the FN.
In a corporate setting, this is the point at which the customer would go back to the developers and negotiate a reduction in scope of the project to meet the budget.
The fact that this doesn’t seem to be happening raises the ugly thought that perhaps the sponsors are comfortable with this defeat to run on next fall.
I agree with Noman. It is impossible to tell with the information available whether the costs are accurate or not. The fiscal note may or may not provide us with more clues.
We do not know the current state of the existing FMS, therefore it is impossible to compare it to other states. They may have been in much better shape to begin with.
I am curious to know if the current project to overhaul the new enterprise system is being implemented in-house or is being subcontracted out.
That being said, it should not be abandoned. It is doable, it just has to be done right from the beginning. That is easier said than done, in my experience.
Did John Kowalko happen to mention that his wife is one of the 100K plus paid newish administrative positions that Joe Wise contracted in the Christiana School district while removing from said contracts the ability of the district to dump them if finances got tight? Just sayin.
I like John a lot, an awful lot. But this is an area where he might be seen as protecting his own and that is the kind of grey area of ethics and disclosure that I find important to place on the table.
I am very disappointed that someone who fights for so much that the public needs would stand in the way of opening our government pocketbook to public scrutiny.
Perhaps I had better get his views in person and not latch onto this third hand.
Re: unfunded and under-funded mandates:
Do make note DSTP goes beyond federal mandate re: NCLB.
Per NCLB testing is required grades 3, 5, 8 and one high school grade level in which DOE choose 10th grade. Though you do hear or see the term DSTP2 however DSTP@ refers to off year testing. Sokola’s attempt to forego DSTP next year to save 10 million dollars in a nice gesture however, the Feds will not go for it as every state will come in crying poor mouth. Also, Tom Terrific Carper godfather of DSTP and boost to all in Washington D.C. he reformed public schools in Delaware.
By moving DSTP to what is only required by federal law could save money. Also,
Delaware is part of the USDOE approved pilot program to test the Growth Model Plan.
DSTP was due to be revamp but put on the back burner hoping the less costly Growth Model Plan would be approved.
Also, Delaware has more fat in middle management and “consultants” than you can imagine. Where else to start with education reform from the top down then Delaware DOE itself?
The legislators have a little dark secret that many educational laws prior to June 2002 are illegal because they failed to follow Title 14, Chapter 2, Section I , Subsection 207 that required a written impact study prior to voting on educational legislation. This impact study required the identifying the funding sources. This law was tactfully repealed at the close of legislative session 2002.
Though it’s a tough time for the budget however our legislators set this state on a self-destructive financial course by refusing to implement real transparency. With the financial meltdown of Christina and Red Clay School Districts it is quite obvious Delaware DOE does not have the skills to provide real financial oversight.
The bottom-line is DOE and the legislators have failed to provide effective real oversight of public school finances and it’s time the people become the watchdog! School finance is the best place to start with transparency as it represents 1.1 billion dollars of the budget
Now is the time for our legislators to hand the keys of this state back to it’s rightful owners, the people and taxpayers. They work for us not us for them! Wait!! Why don’t our elected officials take a voluntary 10% pay cut ? If elected school board members, the only elected public officials who don’t get paid work for free then why can’t legislators work for 10% less?
Sorry for the type-o’s big Al
As far as I know school checkbook transparency can be implemented by a District without involving the GA. So when is somebody going to run for school board on a financial transparency pledge?
noman
“So when is somebody going to run for school board on a financial transparency pledge?”
Good point and I haven’t heard any Red Clay Board Candidates making a pledge to call for a full audit, reports by object codes or online checkbooks.
I am on their finanical review committee and I insisted the spreadsheet data base could be converted to Pdf. format and put online for view only. I am told this can’t be done. I only know Excel and you can hide data fields and sort by name dates and many other options. The data is already in the state system and it just a matter of converting to view only. Also, the state system is switching to People-soft next year. Does any one know what the capabilities of People-soft is?
If a District has a spreadsheet they should post it on their website. I’m sure bandwidth could be found from the State or donated if that is an issue.
If they have their data in a database it can easily be exported to a spreadsheet. It might be necessary to export a subset to exclude any private data. There are lots of IT savvy parents in any district that would do this for free. But anyone in charge of this data should know how to do this.
Kilroy there is no need for PDF or “view only.” If I got my hands on such a thing I would just break the protection anyway so I could sort and manipulate the data.
I insisted the spreadsheet data base could be converted to Pdf. format and put online for view only. I am told this can’t be done.
You are being played, Kilroy, who told you this?
There is certainly no technical reason, as long as there is no legal reason it could be done immediately. There is no need to build an online website, heck just put the data out in spreadheet or whatever format, and odds are someone can be found to whip it into shape and host it.
I wonder if an informal meeting between some citizen geeks and the DE Technology Office might do more good than the transparency resolutions.
PeopleSoft is a huge system with many modules, it depends on what modules are implemented in which agencies.
PeopleSoft can provide the data for the whole transparency package; once every agency is using the system it would be a snap to get the data. To do the school checkbooks, the schools would have to use Peoplesoft to cut their checks (or at least use systems that can send their data to Peoplesoft).
Nonan,
You are being played, Kilroy, who told you this?
Someone that thinks I am totally stupid! I’ll admit my grammar sucks and drives some folks crazy ! However, I use many data applications at my job and know how to manipulate spreadsheets.
Copy and paste this link http://php.delawareonline.com/stateCheckbook/index.php?vendorName=harcourt
Those legislators who oppose online data are fools and will be voted out of office.
Data from all the school districts in Delaware are in the state’s mainframe. All the accounting is software driven, school don’t use the old paper ledger binders!
I know many legislators read this blog and to those legislators, get your heads out of You asses and bring us what we demand! We are tired of serving those who are required to serve us!
Don’t have to copy and paste the link, just click it !