State Rep. Bill Zedler isn’t giving up the fight for more transparency over local school districts. Despite the roadblocks set up in front of his legislation last session, he’s back again filing the same bill designed to shine a light on how your ISD is spending your money.
Rep. Zedler introduced HB 1236 during the last session, requiring school districts to put their check registers, credit card transactions, and fund balances on their websites for public view.
After his bill failed to even get a hearing in the House Public Education Committee (chaired by the now-defeated Straus lieutenant Rob Eissler), Rep. Zedler offered a similar amendment to SB 1, the omnibus fiscal matters bill during the special session.
Not a single member of the House objected to the amendment, allowing it to pass without a record vote!
Despite no one in the House objecting to more transparency, Zedler’s amendment was stripped from SB 1 during the conference committee—where there is no official record of which conferee supported removed it.
Rep. Zedler isn’t giving up.
He’s authored new legislation, HB 284, identical to the original.
Such protections are essential to keeping local school districts efficient in their spending and accountable to their local taxpayers.
Once the House committee assignments are delegated, call the members of the House Public Education Committee and tell them to stop obfuscating and send this bill to the floor for a vote. There’s no reason for this bill to go another session without so much as a hearing.
This measure is a priority for Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, and will be included in the 2013 Fiscal Responsibility Index.
Image Source: executivegov.com via Google Images
