Memo to Park Ridge-Niles Elementary School District 64 Board members John Heyde, Ron James, Marty Joyce, Chris Mollet, Sue Runyon, Ted Smart and Genie Taddeo: Why do you need to enlist help from our community’s “key communicators” to win support for your plan to add more than $700,000 a year in new personnel, including more administrators?
As reported in last week’s Herald-Advocate (“District 64 invites public to discuss new staff additions,” March 27), District 64 has invited certain select individuals – including members of last year’s referendum committee and other District 64-affiliated groups – to attend a “Power Point presentation” (a/k/a, a dog-and-pony show) by Supt. Sally Pryor about this new personnel plan this Wednesday, April 2, so that those “key communicators” can, in turn, “spread the word” to the community about what a great idea this is.
But if this is such a great idea, we would expect its benefits to be pretty self-evident from whatever information persuaded you board members. So why not simply publish that information on the District’s website where the general public could read it? And even if this plan needs some explanation, aren’t all of you Board members who seem to endorse it, or Supt. Pryor who helped devise it, capable of providing that explanation without recruiting mouthpieces from the ranks of the same folks who helped you sell the big tax increase referendum to the voters a year ago?
Yes, we know that other members of the public are also “welcome to attend” this meeting, so long as they RSVP (by calling 847.318.4300) before showing up. But the use of invitations sends a pretty clear message about who you want at this meeting.
If you really wanted to know what the community thinks about spending almost three-quarters of a million dollars annually on new personnel, you should have sought public input for the idea months ago – before Staff even put this plan together – rather than after you devised it, announced it, and began catching the flak you should have expected given how, only a year ago, you were assuring the voters that the extra revenues from the tax increases would not be used for new personnel.
Instead of packing a room with cheerleaders and passing out the Kool-Aid, why not hold a truly “open” meeting and, for starters, address the issues raised by Robert Smith in his March 13, 2008, letter to the editor of the Herald-Advocate (“Promises didn’t include more positions”)? If you tried asking the public about what you want to do before deciding on it, maybe you wouldn’t have to recruit others to “sell” the public on it.
11 comments so far
It is $700,000 to start. They add about 5% to salaries and benefits every year.
Why doesn’t District 64 publish their full budget on their website? If they have ever done that I missed it.
Do all these local gov’t types sing from the same hymnal? They tax us six ways from Sunday, spend our money like they’d never spend their own dough, and then do their best to keep secrets from everybody but the people who agree with them.
Listen, School Board – you couldn’t manage your money so you jammed us for a big tax increase. STOP blowing our money on more personnel and other things you can do without. Basta!
It is not only the salaries of the new staff but also the additional support staff, computer additions and upgrades, and new office space. In addition these folks will come with hudge pensions to most likely add to underfunded pension dollars.
It is obvious that these board members are not responsible for budgets in private industry.
Hey, see how confident you feel about D-64’s financial future after you read the minutes from the D-64 Community Finance Committee 2/7/08 meeting on D-64’s website. How informative to know that “questions were asked”, “comments were made,” and “very interesting conversations” were had with Sen. Kotowski and Rep. Mulligan. Oh, and let’s not overlook the “brainstorming” that went on.
This is the smart move on the part of the district 64 administration and the board. Make this move now, early on, to hire more administrators, and the next time they go to the voters for a referendum for more tax money this will be ancient district history in the short memories of the voters. Just like the voters forgot that the district promised to return any leftover money after the Emerson Yes-Yes referendum, then didn’t.
Does anybody know what the qualifications are for these people appointed – not ELECTED, but APPOINTED – to D-64’s Community Finance Committee? This Commmittee is supposed to be providing financial advice to a school district that has been on bad paper with the State Board of Education for years, and the only description of their qualifications is stuff like “community member,” “Field parent” and “Lincoln teacher.” Can they even balance their own checkbooks?
anonymous 03.31.08 2:33 PM
And a whole year before any of those board members run for re-election. Oh, wait, they don’t usually have any opposition.
Anyone else RSVP their plans to attend?
I’ll be there, hope to see some of the rest of you.
one of my neighbors “hustled” me into supporting the referendum last spring, telling me that two years of tax increase would keep the district solvent for at least 10 years. but now a year later, i still haven’t seen any actual dollar amounts that the district expects to generate from the tax increases – only the spending numbers. and that 10 years is sounding shakier by the minute.
something seems very wrong here.
I might show up but I’ll be damned if I’m going to RSVP to a damn public meeting to hear public information that should damn well be public.
Anonymous 7:50-excellent observation. The administration had ample time to make the arrangements to hold the meeting in the gym at one of the schools and invite the public to attend-not just special guests and RSVPers. The presentation should also have been put on the website in advance so it could have been reviewed beforehand and the public could ask questions. Just what are we getting for all the money we are paying out to the administrators?
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