Oregon Department of Education builds fiscal-transparency unit to give clearer school-level financial data

Oregon Department of Education officials told the Legislature’s Education Subcommittee on March 24 that they have created a fiscal-transparency unit to improve the accuracy and usability of school district financial data.

The unit, led by Devin Castillo, director of fiscal transparency, is building data-quality controls, interactive dashboards and advisory services intended to shift conversations from compliance toward financial decisions tied to student outcomes.

The effort grew from a 2023 budget note and a 2024 report to the Joint Ways and Means Committee, Castillo said. The unit’s work is grouped into three areas: data quality and dashboard development, fiscal health and policy, and advisory services. Castillo said the unit has strengthened audit submission and reconciliation processes, is piloting visual dashboards of spending and sustainability indicators, and is drafting a statewide fiscal-health review framework to identify districts at risk earlier.

“The goal is to move beyond timely audits to evaluating the quality and intent behind financial decisions and how they align with district goals and student outcomes,” Castillo said.

Office of Finance and Information Technology Assistant Superintendent Kai Turner described the strategic planning behind the effort and told the panel OFIT developed measurable goals and included equity aims in its targets. Turner said the office is working to standardize fiscal reporting so local decisions and grant spending are more observable at the state level.

Committee members asked about the relationship between individual grants and districts’ broader budgets. OFIT staff said grants are tracked by grant managers and reported back in narrative and final reports, but that the state’s chart of accounts and the Program Budget Accounting Manual (PBAM) currently make it difficult to trace a single grant dollar through a district’s audited financials. Turner said the department is improving data collection so the state can, over time, show grant-level funding flows without increasing administrative burden on districts.

Castillo and OFIT staff said the unit will pilot tools that flag fiscal trends and provide technical assistance on government fund accounting, budgeting, auditing and financial-management systems. They urged collaboration across districts, state agencies and policy makers to make dashboards and analyses useful and comparable.

Questions from the committee focused on how quickly the unit could provide grant-level transparency and whether the new reporting would increase local administrative workload. OFIT said the aim is to reduce reporting burden by modernizing the chart of accounts and improving automated submissions, while giving grant managers the tools to verify allowability and allocability at closeout.

The presentation concluded with a request that the subcommittee treat the work as iterative: the department will continue piloting dashboards, refine key financial indicators and offer technical assistance as the data infrastructure improves.