LADY BUDGETDOWN: OTTAWA ISD — IS THIS REALLY TRANSPARENCY?
📂 Public financial records are supposed to be accessible to the public. But accessible and usable are two different things.
I recently visited Ottawa Area ISD's financial transparency website to review its publicly posted records.
Here's what I encountered:
📌 Accounts Payable Check Register — Unable to download or copy the spreadsheet data.
📌 Employee Compensation Report — Unable to download.
📌 Other financial documents — Similar difficulties downloading the records.
📌 Financial Audit — The ONLY document I was able to successfully download.
⏰ After spending more than 30 minutes trying different methods to access these records, I finally gave up.
And that raises a simple question.
If taxpayers can VIEW public financial information but cannot easily download, save, sort, or independently analyze it, how useful is that transparency?
I'm not suggesting Ottawa ISD is violating any laws. And I'm certainly not suggesting anything improper about the financial information itself.
But transparency should be more than checking a box on a website.
💬 Ottawa Area ISD, why make it so difficult for the public to download and examine financial records that you've already made available online?
And I'm curious...
Has anyone else encountered similar problems trying to access financial records on a Michigan school district's transparency website?
👒 Lady B believes public information should be practical for the public to use.
#LadyBudgetdown #OttawaAreaISD #SchoolTransparency #PublicRecords #MichiganEducation #TaxpayerTransparency #FollowTheNumbers