Online budget would make MSU more reliable

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Spring semester tuition: about $6,000-$9,000.

Knowing exactly how the university is using those precious dollars: priceless.

MSU’s Students for Prosperity, a newly created student group, is campaigning for the university’s budget information to be available online for anyone — from taxpayers to students — to see what the public university is doing with its millions. By having a detailed, spreadsheet-type view at expenditures, the group hopes people could easily hold the university accountable.

The university might not have to specify small things — how much it spent on a package of coffee for the office, for instance — but rather provide an overall look at what departments spend.

However, Fred Poston, vice president for finance and operations, said the proposed format wouldn’t be feasible at this time, especially considering the university’s accounting system is “really outmoded” and supporting the traffic such a database would produce could be difficult.

Sounds like the perfect time to upgrade.

Come on, MSU. Everyone else is doing it.

Just this year, Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox announced his office will display contracts and expenditures online (visit www.michigan.gov/ag and click on the “Track your Taxes” link). The Ingham County Circuit Court system expects to have all of its court records available online by the end of the year, although a fee to view is still being discussed.

The state’s Web site, www.michigan.gov, also makes budget and statistical information available for visitors to download. Online is where government transparency and information gathering is headed. For so long, information usually received through the Freedom of Information Act, such as a budget, could take time, manpower and paper to gather and disperse.

Then again, most people probably didn’t know they had a right to this sort of information. Well, you do, but getting it can be difficult and expensive, depending on what’s being requested.

It’s wrong. People shouldn’t jump through hoops to get the information they’re entitled to.

That’s why the Internet is such a great alternative — it can cut out all the fuss. Although the Internet is not yet accessible to everyone, it seems inevitable that being Web savvy will be a part of society’s technological evolution. At some point, it might be a requirement for institutions to make information available online for the public to peruse.

It seems fitting that a public university funded by taxpayers and thousands of students should join the fun right now.

Yes, revamping the university’s accounting methods and making an understandable, detailed database — or maybe an annual or monthly report — for users to download or view would take time and money to start up, and probably years to perfect.

Most students probably won’t scramble to check on how MSU spends every penny, but there will be enough people to make an upgrade worth it.

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