Few Licking County schools post checkbooks online

NEWARK - Last year, Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel announced local governments and school districts could put their checkbooks online at no cost to them.

Nearly 800 local governments and school districts have taken the treasurer up on his offer, including 171 school districts. But few districts in Licking County have put their checkbooks on OhioCheckbook.com, the site Mandel's office created that publishes the state's checkbook.

Southwest Licking Local Schools and Licking Heights Local Schools have their checkbooks available on the site now. Heath City Schools and Granville Exempted Village Schools have committed to the site, but their checkbooks haven't been published yet, according to Mandel's office.

Southwest Licking's checkbook was published last year. District Treasurer Richard Jones said the district's school board did not hesitate to join.

"This was an easy way of doing it with no cost to the district," he said.

He said having the checkbook available online allows for more transparency.

Granville Exempted Village Schools Treasurer Mike Sobul said added transparency is why the district decided to join as well.

"It just seemed like from a transparency standpoint, it was the right thing to do," he said.

Granville has turned its data over to the state, Sobul said, and its site should go live soon.

The district did hesitate, Sobul said. He said district officials didn't want people to have an incomplete picture of the district's finances. The site shows where the district makes purchases but not what stream the money is coming from. For example, if a student group purchases pizzas for an activity with its own funds, the site will only show that pizzas have been purchased by the district, not what money source paid for them.

Sobul said the district didn't want information to be taken out of context, but ultimately decided to join the site. He said if people have questions about what they see on the site, they can contact the district.

"We thought we had nothing to hide," he said.

Should your school post its checkbook online?

But not all districts are ready to sign on. Jo Lynn Torbert, treasurer for Licking Valley Local Schools, said the district has not evaluated the site because it is still so new, but it might consider joining in the future.

Licking Heights superintendent Philip Wagner the district had spent time evaluating the site before agreeing. The district's information was published in July. And although Licking Heights decided to take part, Wagner said it should be an "individual discussion" for districts to post their finances.

Newark City Schools Treasurer Jeff Anderson said the district has informally discussed joining the website once or twice in the last few months.

"The general consensus was that the board would prefer that individuals seeking information about Newark City Schools should come speak to the superintendent, treasurer, or a board member so that the information could be explained and interpreted correctly," he said.

Anderson said people who are seeking financial information also can find it on the Ohio Department of Education website or Newark City Schools website.

"The Newark City School Board supports having transparency," he said. "But the transparency we have is enough without putting out another set of numbers that could be pulled up, manipulated and/or misinterpreted."

mdevito@gannett.com

740-328-8513

Twitter: @MariaDeVito13