Gazette: House delegation offers mixed views of transparency bill

In an article appearing in the online Gazette, reporter Marcus Moore writes:

Members of the county's House delegation have mixed feelings about a proposed bill to make more of the Montgomery County school system's business transactions open to the public.
If passed by the General Assembly, Del. Alfred C. Carr's bill would require the system to publish on a database details on spending of $10,000 and up.
School system leaders would have to build the database, which they estimate could cost as much as $50,000.

First of all, I'm trying to figure out exactly what MCPS has in mind for $50,000. We're talking about a static database (refreshed perhaps monthly), where people will do a search and then display a record of interest. Like this:

Search records - Display possible matches - Select Record of interest - Display record.

This not a system where the complexities of real-time updating need to be considered. There are no complex business processes in this application. This is about as simple as a computer application gets. Computer Science 101 - homework assignment 3.

I'd sure like to know how MCPS came up with the $50,000 cost estimate for this simple application.

But cost objections aside, Del. Ana Sol Gutierrez (a former MCPS BOE president) doesn't support the transparency law.

"The information is already there. It is transparent," Gutierrez (D-Dist. 18) of Chevy Chase said during the delegation meeting.

I respectfully disagree.