District finance staff demonstrated a new public dashboard that shows purchases and contracts greater than $250,000, and committee members praised the increased transparency.

Mister Prentice presented the dashboard and said monthly procurement activity now feeds directly from the district’s accounting system and appears on a public transparency page. The dashboard includes five tabs: procurement by fund, procurement by department, procurement by vendor, procurement by procurement type (contract, cooperative, solicitation) and a raw data feed that resembles the prior PDF report. “The information is now feeding from our accounting system as these procurements are made on a monthly basis into this dashboard,” Prentice said.

The nut graf: The presentation showed three competitive procurements in the current monthly cycle with advertising periods and response counts; staff said general counsel, the CFO and the procurement director review and concur with contracts for code compliance before posting.

Committee members, including Mr. Grabowski and Mr. Duke, tested the dashboard and commended the business intelligence and procurement teams for making the data easier to use and more accessible to the public.

Next steps: Staff said they will continue to add Power BI elements to the transparency page and expand disclosures where useful to the public.