Post-secondary institutions in southern Alberta — including the University of Calgary — say they'll follow the province's lead when it comes to disclosing the expenses of top ranking officials.

Premier Alison Redford has introduced new rules about what MLAs and their staff can and cannot claim, and their receipts must be published every two months.

Redford said she expects public institutions to do the same.

It comes after documents obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation revealed Doug Black, the U of C's board chairman, claimed $28,000 dollars in expenses in an 18-month period that included first-class flights and luxury hotels.

Black has since paid back just over $5,000 dollars of that money.

Nancy Walker, vice president of finance at the University of Lethbridge, says while disclosing expenses wasn't a requirement before, the university is open to starting the process.

"We'll have to determine exactly what individuals, what positions it is that they would like us to publicly disclose," Walker said.

The Southern Alberta Insitute of Technology also said in a written statement that if the disclosure of expenses becomes a requirement, they would abide by the new rules.

Duane Anderson, the vice president of administrative services at Mount Royal University, agrees.

"We don't believe there are any issues,” Anderson said. “We've spent the last several years updating and ensuring that all those policies and procedures are in compliance with the standards that we feel need to be set for universities."

Late Thursday afternoon, the University of Calgary issued a news release saying it "welcomes the Government of Alberta’s new policy on expense disclosure, and will fully comply with it."

But university president, Elizabeth Cannon, refused to answer questions from reporters when approached on Thursday morning.

The Head of Policy Studies at Mount Royal, Duane Bratt, says while the average person may or may not be interested, watchdog groups such as the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, journalists, and opposition parties will definitely keep an eye on the expense claims.

"And just the fact that you know your expense reports are going to be going up on the internet, in and of itself will probably be a deterrant on some of the abuses that we have seen," Bratt said.

He also says because public officials must show expense claims internally, there shouldn't be any extra cost to put them online.