CHARLESTON — West Virginia taxpayers will soon be able to see detailed information on county and state education spending thanks to an expansion of wvCheckbook.gov, the State Auditor’s office transparency portal.

State Auditor J.B. McCuskey announced the expansion on wvCheckbook on Wednesday during a press conference at the State Capitol Building.

“This is a big day for myself and our team,” McCuskey said. “We’ve been working on a transparency website that gives the public unparalleled access to their government’s information. It’s been sort of my mantra since I took over three-and-a-half years ago that public information should be public and accessible and easily findable.”

wvCheckbook.gov is a website where the public can search state spending, revenue, expenses, state employee salaries and more. The transparency website went live in February 2018.

Now at wvCheckbook.gov, people can click on “State K-12 Education Spending,” where they’ll be taken to a portal dedicated to county and state education spending. Data includes spending for the current 2021 fiscal year and the last three fiscal years. The website includes a walk-through on how to use the site and search the data. The portal also includes an explanation of how the state Department of Education spends money, breaks down department expenses and distributions.

“So many of our citizens have children and grandchildren in the school system,” McCuskey said. “We want them to be able to interact with us to understand where the money is being spent, how it’s being spent, and the reasons why the spending is occurring.”

The education spending transparency portal was a requirement of House Bill 206, the education omnibus bill passed during a lengthy special session that ended the summer of 2019. HB 206 included several items to improve funding for county school systems: increased pay for teachers and school service personnel, as well as additional pay for math teachers and special education teachers; money for more mental health professionals in schools, and a public charter school program.

“One of the things we focused on as a legislature over the past several years was the degree in which we display the areas of which we’re transparent to the public and how we spend our dollars,” said Senate President Mitch Carmichael, R-Jackson. “It’s one of the most important ways to affect change in any state when people are aware of the manner in which their funds are being utilized. It generates change and enhances efficiency and improves the entire operation.”

“One of the items I found to be a struggle when we talk about budgeting was actually obtaining the information that you need to make an informed decision on the budgeting process,” said Del. Moore Capito, R-Kanawha. “What I’ve found since (McCuskey) took over at the Auditor’s Office is the level of not only transparency, but the user interface and the ease of access that everybody has to the information.”

McCuskey said greater transparency for education spending would help public policy experts and lawmakers make better decisions in the future about what parts of education need increased funding and what parts are costing too much. McCuskey praised the cooperation of State Superintendent of School Clayton Burch and the Department of Education for helping make the portal a reality.

“We knew from the onset when you had this idea that we wanted to be transparent,” Burch said to McCuskey. “A large portion of the state’s budget goes into education. It’s really really important … it doesn’t matter whether you’re at a state agency or the Department of Education or you’re at a local county board of education. We’ve got to be transparent in how we spend these dollars.”

New fiscal year data will be added on a yearly basis by the end of July, though a future goal includes having wvOASIS system – which manages payroll, personnel management, time reporting, benefits, and financial management for state agencies – and WVEIS – the Department of Education’s networked computer data system – be able to communicate with each other for real-time reporting.

Originally created to allow taxpayers, researchers, and the press to research state spending and tax revenue, wvCheckbook was expanded to include detailed information on counties and municipalities. So far, 12 out of 55 county commissions participate, as well as two towns and two cities with Beckley, Wheeling, and Dunbar coming online soon.

Officials with the State Auditor’s Office also unveiled a redesign to the wvCheckbook website, making it easier for the public to find information and look at data by topic, such as COVID-19 spending. Other specific topics that will be added in the future include a more-detailed look at transportation spending, improvements to general revenue reporting, transparency on prescription drug prices, and law enforcement asset forfeiture programs.