The Schools Board’s Secret Accounting
While the County Treasurer follows the law, the School District No. 1 board refuses to show taxpayers where the money goes.
The Statesman is informed that County Treasurer Hawley has complied with the law in making quarterly financial reports to the directors of School District No. 1. The board, however, has completely ignored the law laid down in Section 92 of the Code of Public Instruction requiring an annual printed report to the taxpayers of the district, showing in detail the receipts and disbursements of the school funds. The directors of this school district are probably the only public officials in the city or county who neglect or refuse to make the reports required by the laws which they take an oath to obey. No director has ever offered any excuse for this violation of the law. The board has authority to employ a competent accountant to make the report required, and no one would object to the payment of a reasonable amount for that purpose. As the annual disbursements of this school district are more than half those of the city or the county government, it is certainly important to the taxpayer that they should know just how and for what money is being expended.
“The directors of this school district are probably the only public officials in the city or county who neglect or refuse to make the reports required by the laws which they take an oath to obey.”
Public oversight of school funding remains a perennial tension in Washington, where transparency in district spending is a baseline expectation of civic trust. This 1903 demand for accountability reflects a persistent frustration with bureaucratic opacity that still shapes modern school board elections.
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