The often opaque world of school finances has become more transparent with a new tool that allows New Yorkers to analyze how their school districts spend money and to compare them to nearly 700 other districts around the state.

Benchmarking New York–developed by the Empire Center for Public Policy and The Business Council’s Public Policy Institute–is a searchable database of school district spending (excluding only New York City) during the 2007-08 school year. The tool can be found at www.SeeThroughNY.net, the Empire Center’s transparency Website where comparable Benchmarking data for local governments was posted in April…

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