JCBOE Contract Transparency Monitor

Jersey City Board of Education

Tracking whether the public can actually see the contracts their Board of Education approves. Governance that remembers.

What is this? When the Board votes to spend taxpayer money on a contract, residents should be able to see the full agreement — what work is being done, how much it costs, and who signed off. This dashboard tracks how often that information is actually provided to the public through BoardDocs, the Board's official document portal. Full Report

Contract: A legal agreement between the school district and a company. Should include what work is being done, how much it costs, how long it lasts, and signatures from both parties.
Resolution: A formal vote by the Board. When you see "Resolution 8.07," that's the Board voting to approve something like spending money on a contract. The resolution text is the paragraph on the agenda.
PO Form (Purchase Order): An internal form the district uses to authorize a payment. This is NOT a contract — it's the district telling itself "ok, spend this money." It doesn't show what the vendor agreed to do.
Source Document: The actual contract or proposal that spells out exactly what a company will do, for how much, and under what conditions. This is what should be public but usually isn't.
Documentation Gap: When the Board approves spending but doesn't attach the actual agreement. You can see "we approved $2M for Company X" but can't see what Company X actually agreed to do.
Amendment / Change Order: A change to an existing contract, usually to spend more money or extend the timeline. Both the amendment and the original contract should be publicly available.
NTE (Not To Exceed): The maximum amount that can be spent under a contract. The actual cost may be less, but can't go higher without another Board vote.
OPRA: Open Public Records Act — New Jersey law that gives you the right to request public records from government agencies. If a document isn't on BoardDocs, you can file an OPRA request to get it.
BoardDocs: The website (go.boarddocs.com) the JCBOE uses to publish meeting agendas and attachments. This is the main place residents can see what the Board is voting on.
Bid Tabulation: A spreadsheet that compares the bids submitted by different companies competing for a contract. It shows who bid, how much they bid, and who won. It's useful for transparency but is not the actual contract — it just shows who was selected.
Vendor: A company or person that provides goods or services to the school district.
Renewal: When an existing contract is extended for another year. NJ law allows renewals without re-bidding, but the terms should still be publicly documented.

Meeting Timeline

Each box is one Board meeting. Green = documented, Red = no docs. Yellow badge = Special Meeting, Blue badge = Reorganization.

Gap Rate Over Time

Percentage of contracts missing documentation at each meeting

Gap Rate by Contract Size

Larger contracts aren't necessarily better documented

What's Actually Attached?

When the Board does attach a file, what kind of document is it?

Largest Undocumented Contracts

Date	Vendor	Amount	Description

Total Dollar Exposure

How much money was approved without the public seeing the actual contract?

Vendor Documentation Tracker

Companies that have received contracts without full documentation. Red border = has gaps.

Renewals & Amendments