In January 2010, media reports were warning that the state of Michigan’s government was facing “steep budget” cuts, with a projected deficit of $1.5 billion, and that chronic deficits for years to come would impact K-12 school funding.

About five months later, the Carman-Ainsworth Community School financial audit showed that the district’s expenses had exceeded revenues by $1.8 million in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2010. The district’s spending had increased by $1.6 million in 2010 compared to the previous year. Yet, on June 22, 2010, the school board approved a contract with its teachers that handed out raises as high as 6.7 percent for teachers with fewer than 12 years of service. Teachers with more than 12 years of service were to get raises between 1.5 to 2.5 percent.

The school board also negotiated away a $500 annual health care premium co-sharing that the teachers were contributing, in exchange for the union agreeing to a cheaper health care plan. The example given in the union contract showed that the cheaper health care plan could save the district about $750,000.

Under the new agreement, a teacher with a bachelor’s degree starting in 2009-10 would get a salary of $38,408. In 2010-11, that salary would increase to $40,386, a 5.1 percent increase. In 2011-12, the salary jumps 6.7 percent to $43,103. As a fourth-year teacher, such a person would get another 6.7 percent increase to $46,003 in 2012-13. Teachers with more experience and master’s degrees saw similar raises.

How could a school district that was over budget when experts were warning of dire financial times hand out hefty raises and offer a health care plan with no employee contributions?

School board members Don Conway, Peggy Anderson, Patrice Hatcher, Joy Hart, Ann Saunders and Recco Richardson didn’t respond to emails seeking comment.

Jack McHugh, a legislative analyst for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, said it is about a too-cozy relationship between school boards and their unions.

“Taxpayers are shortchanged when the government employee union sits on both sides of the teacher compensation bargaining table,” McHugh wrote in an email. “This happens because of state laws that force every school employee to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment, and force every school district to bargain with the union no matter how unreasonable or unaffordable its demands. Not surprisingly, one of the first things the unions use is the excessive resources and political power these laws grant them to get union members and sympathizers elected to school boards. Until the Legislature repeals the law that forces districts to engage in collective bargaining with government employee unions, this will not change. The deck will remain stacked against taxpayer interests, and stories like this will remain commonplace.”

A few minutes dedicated to government transparency was all it took to save one public school district tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars.

East China School District in St. Clair County recently decided to put its checkbook register online. The register outlines all of the district’s expenses each month. School board member Allen Reichle said this helped save about $60,000 when a local resident noticed the district had made a mistake when putting one of its expenses up for a bid. Reichle said the district ended up purchasing copying service from a new provider for substantially less than the district's current plan.

“We did not open up the bidding for one of our services and just went through the same company we had always [used],” said Reichle. “[Luckily], we had a meeting where a citizen brought this up.”

East China has joined the growing list of public schools posting their checkbook registers online, said Ken Braun, director of the Mackinac Center's "Show Michigan the Money" project. Braun has been encouraging all 551 public school districts to regularly provide this data on their websites.

“As this district has shown, government transparency has positive ‘real world’ effects,” said Braun. “Greater openness in government helps not only prevent corruption, but lays out exactly how public entities spend taxpayer dollars.”

Besides helping public officials do their jobs, Reichle has another reason why districts should be open with their finances. “This is a public school district; we serve the public,” he said.

“People need to see what’s on the agenda.”

The current list of schools known to be posting online check registers at the Show Michigan the Money website links to the check registers of 81 conventional school districts, two charter public schools and three intermediate school districts.

To see East China School District’s checkbook register, visit the school website here. The register is under the school board’s “meeting agendas.”

Links to all school district checkbook registers are available at www.mackinac.org/9329.