Students hold local officials accountable


Theme
Accountability

Project
In a group of two or three students, research the annual budget for your town, city or municipal district (or a single project, initiative or department). This information may be on an Internet web site or available in a print form from your municipal district, town or city office.

Determine the categories used to identify expenses, as well as the amount spent in each area. Enter the collected data into a spreadsheet, and produce an appropriate graph to represent the per cent of expenses allocated to each category.

Electronically, prepare a brochure for taxpayers, outlining the budget categories and expenses.

This brochure should contain a description of the categories, the table of data collected and the graph of the distribution of expenses.

Where possible compare final data to proposed data.