It has been almost two years since we first started writing – in our posts of 11.28.14 and 12.23.14 – about Park Ridge-Niles School District 64’s efforts to catch and cull non-resident “parasite” students.
So we were pleased to read a recent Park Ridge Herald-Advocate article (“12 students removed from District 64 for non-residency; background checks expanded,” 09.16.16) reporting that 12 students were removed from D-64 schools last year because it was discovered that they didn’t live in the District full-time. At a rough cost of $14,000 per student, that’s almost $170,000 a year in savings.
Upon seeing that article we went to the District’s website and found the Residency Update report that the District’s investigator is currently working on 9 more cases.
The H-A story, but not the District’s report, states that D-64 Chief School Business Official Luann Kolstad pegged the cost of the residency investigations and one formal hearing at $77,464, which seems a bit stiff. It’s also hard to understand because…SURPRISE!…the non-transparent District apparently offered the H-A reporter no explanation. And, presumably, the H-A reporter didn’t think to ask for one.
But saving the taxpayers a net $90,000+ seems to make it a worthwhile exercise and expense.
So we’re offering D-64 a rousing “Huzzah!” for getting something right.
But because yin can’t seem to exist without yang, we can’t help but note that the published agenda for this Monday night’s D-64 Board meeting includes something very wrong: “Ratification of PREA/Board Agreement.”
No Board packet has been posted on the District’s website, so we don’t know whether the opaque Board and Administration might actually deign to include the new contract among the rest of the meeting materials. But we highly doubt it.
After telling the taxpayers to pound sand for the past few weeks, it’s unlikely that Supt. Laurie Heinz would let “Boss” Borrelli and the rest of the Board lemmings do anything transparent, even something as worthless as an 11th-hour publication of the contract.
But if you don’t care about the Falcons v. the Saints on Monday night football, and are willing to risk missing the first few minutes of the Clinton v. Trump circus, swing by the Roosevelt School gym and bear witness to non-representative, Star Chamber local government at pretty much its absolute worst.
You are likely to hear Heinz, Borrelli and/or the lemmings brag about how wonderful they are, how wonderful the PREA folks are, and how wonderful the new contract is – including new spending that will make that $90,000+ savings from residency checks seem like chump change.
Then you can return home to the relative honesty and sincerity of Hill and Don.
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12 comments so far
If I were not convinced before, I am now. Mark Twain was so, so right about school boards and their members. Even when they get one thing right, they screw up something else that outweighs the good.
I personally know two of those school board members and if they ran their own households and occupations as stupidly as they run the school board they would be homeless and destitute.
That is why it is galling beyond belief to watch them diddle themselves silly while hiding whatever they can, whenever and wherever they can, from us taxpayers.
EDITOR’S NOTE: City government didn’t get any better until we elected a new mayor and a majority of new aldermen who didn’t store their heads in their keisters. Electing the same kind of go-along-to-get-along people to the school boards just ensures the same kind of secretive mediocrity.
Four of seven D-64 board members are up this time around. That’s a majority that could bring change immediately. But given the last 20 years of history, expect the ballot to be loaded with another bunch of PREA-leaning stumblebums.
Regarding the open meetings act – isn’t the board required to post the packet at least 48 hours ahead of the meeting? And aren’t they required to post any contract that they are voting on?
EDITOR’S NOTE: Yes, and no – because IOMA does not REQUIRE the publication of board packets and materials to be voted on. So we’re at the mercy of the least tranparent (along with the D-207 Board members) of all of our local elected and appointed officials – or liars by omission.
Tomorrow night’s board meeting packet does not have the contract in it. What gives with that?
EDITOR’S NOTE: Those seven D-64 Board members don’t want you to see it until AFTER they approve it, or until the scam becomes a fait accompli.
I wonder how many people who might otherwise attend tonight’s school board meeting will stay home to watch the debate? Except 10 or 20 PREA members who will attend to make sure nothing goes wrong with the board’s approval of the contract they are delighted with.
EDITOR’S NOTE: On a “good” night the taxpayers are lucky to be represented by three or four of their own.
And because the H-A hasn’t posted/published an article about the contract since its 09.16.16 one about the 09.12.16 meeting (http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/park-ridge/news/ct-prh-teachers-contract-complaints-tl-0922-20160915-story.html) – which, not surprisingly, failed to even mention that approval would occur at tonight’s meeting – out of sight tends to be out of mind for all but the most engaged citizens.
And the self-interested PREA members, of course.
Why I’m not going to the D64 school board meeting tonight:
1) They are voting on the #1 biggest line item in the annual budget, but we won’t be allowed to see it in advance, so there’s nothing to hear and no basis to comment.
2) From speaking to Board members it seems to me they will vote 7-0 to approve, unless the union rank-and-file demanded changes that would make a Board member think twice.
3) Point #2 is such a remote possibility that it’s not worth going to see live.
4) It would legitimize how we’ve been insulted by Board members quoted in local news saying we wouldn’t understand such a complex document, and if we did, our opinions wouldn’t matter.
EDITOR’S NOTE: We can see your point(s), although re your No. 2, don’t be surprised if one, two, or even three of the lemmings cast purely political “No” votes – all the while knowing that there are four rock-solid “yes” votes and that their votes don’t really matter – if only so they can say, if challenged somewhere down the road, that they didn’t vote for the contract. Like “Who’s The Boss” Borrelli did 4 years ago.
Thanks for prodding Jennifer Johnson into doing something that approaches reporting, a whole 5 hours before the D-64 joke of a meeting tonight:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/park-ridge/news/ct-prh-d64-contract-vote-tl-0929-20160926-story.html
She admits in her story that a press release about tonight’s meeting was issued by the district last Friday afternoon (at 5:30 p.m., a trick every crooked politician knows as the way to avoid detection through the weekend), so was she asleep at the wheel for the past 2-1/2 days, or is she in bed with Bernadette Tramm and the rest of them over at the ESC?
EDITOR’S NOTE: We did find some humor (albeit of the gallows variety) in Ms. Johnson’s posting her story within about an hour of our getting around to publishing a comment from early this a.m. – with our Editor’s Note pointing out how the H-A had not posted anything about the D-64 contract since 09.16.16, which article was silent on tonight’s meeting or the agenda.
And although she made it seem like she had to rely on that press release to know that tonight was going to be THE night, as we pointed out in the 09.12.16 “UPDATE” to our 09.10.16 post:
UPDATE (09.12.16): Now that the Board packet for tonight’s (09.12.16) meeting has been published we note that the “Upcoming Meetings and Topics” section shows that “Ratification of PREA/Board Agreement” is scheduled for the September 26 meeting at Roosevelt School.
So “asleep at the wheel” seems to be running a distict second to “in bed” with the Philistines running D-64.
Where is your disdain for the Park Ridge Journal? Anne Lunde hasn’t written one thing about the contract. Why give her a pass?
EDITOR’S NOTE: Comparing the Journal to the Tribune is like comparing Alpo to a Jewel t-bone (and note that we didn’t say “a Morton’s filet”): Todd Wessel is a Des Plaines Dem politician masquerading as the editor of a glorified school newpaper.
Is that enough “disdain” for you?
I have been to only a couple of d64 board meetings in the last few years, and I thought about going tonight. But I chose to stay home and have my intelligence insulted by two people on television I don’t know than go to Roosevelt and have my intelligence insulted by people I do know because they are my neighbors.
A sad state of affairs when Trump v. Hillary is less offensive than Borrelli et al.
I just read Ms. Johnson’s two days late and about $1 million a year short article about the contract that was voted on before the taxpayers got to see it. And then I read the D64 press release about the new contract.
The agreement is supposed to add “less than $1 million per year on average to the District’s expenditures for teacher salaries, for a total accumulated expenditure of $3.8 million over the four-year life of the contract.” Because what’s a million dollars a year anymore. And none of those raises are performance based, which makes it a windfall for the teachers. How wonderful!
And it’s tied to the “CPI-U” and locks in annual raises between 1.5% and 3.25% IN ADDITION TO the step and lane increases. So the taxpayers are guaranteeing the teachers’ buying power against inflation. And none of that is performance based, either. How fiscally conservative!
No wonder they wouldn’t publish this piece of crap before they approved it.
D-64 has now posted a “Collective Bargaining Agreement Fact Sheet.” So even now that the contract has been approved they don’t have the decency or the nerve to print the whole contract.
Oh, wait, now I remember. According to Borrelli we’re not smart enough to understand the contract’s complex terms. So they have to give us the “spin” version, the way Trump and Hillary had to have their people explain to us who won the debate and why.
What a load of crap. They should be ashamed but they have no sense of it.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Exactly!
And the 09.27.16 H-A story (“District 64 School Board approves new 4-year teachers contract”) quotes Board member/PREA shill Tom Sotos as claing that the PREA “showed they care about the taxpayer who is funding this contract.”
This may be a first for us, but here goes: “Bwahahahahahaha!”
The district saves $170,000 per year? Sounds fantastic when you first read that line.
However, on what line of the budget is the $170,000 reduced? Salaries? Number of teachers reduced or administrators?
Are they reducing expenses by $170,000? No!
There is no real savings. The district is not going to cut costs because there are 12 fewer students.
Fewer students means that the cost per student increased.
I have no problem with the District removing students from schools that don’t live in Park Ridge full time. But don’t give props to the District for cost savings.
EDITOR’S NOTE: That’s a good point.
We apologize: we’ve been trying so hard to find something good to write about this sad-sack Board and seemingly-inept administrators that we jumped at the chance to offer any kind of kudos.
Eggemann was the only ‘no’ vote, which is something I appreciate. On the other hand, he read a statement that sounded like a political script and only complained about the part of the contract that will keep negotiations of the next contract secret. He sounded fully on board with everythig else.
He’s a dull knife in a drawer of spoons.
EDITOR’S NOTE: “[D]ull knife in a drawer of spoons”? Never heard that before. We might have to borrow it.
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