Texas School Districts Violated a Law Intended to Add Transparency to Local Elections – By Lexi Churchill and Jessica Priest (ProPublica) / April 25, 204
ProPublica and The Texas Tribune analyzed 35 Texas school districts that held trustee elections last fall and found none that posted all of the required campaign finance records.
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Last year, in an effort to bring greater transparency to local elections, the Texas Legislature mandated that school districts, municipalities and other jurisdictions post campaign finance reports online rather than stow them away in filing cabinets.
But many agencies appear to be violating the law that took effect in September.
ProPublica and The Texas Tribune examined 35 school districts that held trustee elections in November and found none that had posted all of the required disclosures online that show candidates’ fundraising and spending. (Two of the districts did not respond to questions that would allow us to determine whether they were missing these reports.) And the agency tasked with enforcing the rules for thousands of local jurisdictions does not have any staff dedicated to checking their websites for compliance.
