South Carolina passes Higher Education Transparency Act, some colleges already posting expenditures online
Independent Mail
February 3, 2011
In a unanimous vote Tuesday, state House members passed the Higher Education Transparency Act and will soon forward it to the state Senate for final approval.
Under the proposed law, colleges and universities that receive state support will have to post a monthly register of expenditures online at an easy-to-find link on their websites.
The law has had widespread support among the state’s public colleges and universities, with several going ahead and posting spending ledgers online before its passage.
Among those is Clemson University, which launched a transparency site two weeks ago at http://transpend.clemson.edu/.
Currently, the Clemson site lists and organizes data by fiscal year, month, fund type and accounting categories, but custom searches by department, program, vendor or spending amount are not available.