To go to the McHenry County College Board meeting tonight or not.
That is the question.
Tonight there will be live streaming for the first time. The meeting starts at 6:30.
Here is the page one will find the link to see McHenry County College Board meetings as they occur.
You won’t have to sit in the auditorium or the entrance and watch the meeting on a big screen. You can watch it on your small screen.
Tom Wilbeck
Here is where you can sign up.
I’ve asked for this for years and the excuse was lack of band width.
The previous Board members would not even make a tape when meetings were recorded in times past.
Now the meetings will be archived and people can see who did what.
Newly-elected Board member Tom Wilbeck suggested the live streaming of Board meetings the night he was sworn in.
What’s up tonight?
Salary increases of 3.7% for the administrators, including President Vicky Smith.
It’s in Report
Not very user-friendly, wouldn’t you agree?
I’ll copy the guts of the proposal again and laboriously piece it back into something you can read:
A. Increase all administrators’ salaries by ___% for those administrators who were in their positions prior to March 1, 2013, excluding those administrators whose salaries would be over the maximum of their range or have been on discipline for any reason or on a Performance Improvement Plan.
B. Increase minimum and maximum rate for the administrative ranges for FY 2014 by the change in the December Consumer Price Index-Urban (CPI-U) for the previous fiscal year, which was 1.7%.
C. Have administrators contribute 25% of the premiums for medical healthcare and 50% of the premiums for dental and vision insurance plans selected.
Below is the whole report with the titles of everyone who would be given raises:
The pitch being made to Trustees is that the above listed positions should all get a one percent raise above the increase in the cost-of-living in order to pay the extra money employees in the pension system to which they and the instructors belong expect to be charged by pending legislation.
If that is passed, of course, all the other employees in the university pension system will expect the same indemnification from the increased costs to be imposed upon college employees. It’s called a “pension pick-up” in education circles.
This same legislation will force local taxpayers to start paying pension deficiencies through property taxes, so the eventual result may be that taxpayers end up paying not only bailing out state government on its soon-to-be broken promise, but also holding MCC employees harmless from any increased pension costs.
If you would like to communicate with Trustees, their addresses are below:
- Chris Jenner trustee_jenner@mchenry.edu
- Cynthia Kisser trustee_kisser@mchenry.edu
- Linda Liddell trustee_liddell@mchenry.edu
- Mary Miller trustee_miller@mchenry.edu
- Ronald Parrish trustee_parrish@mchenry.edu
- Molly Walsh trustee_walsh@mchenry.edu
- Tom Wilbeck trustee_wilbeck@mchenry.edu
- Michele Lambert trustee_lambert@mchenry.edu (student trustee)
Or I guess you can use the old email address to all Trustees, if you find it easier: mcctrustees@mchenry.edu
It’s still on the web site and might still work.
The sooner the government has to live within the market forces the private sector has to live in – the better we will be.
Econ 251.
trustee_jenner@mchenry.edu – I’ll post it here, since I haven’t convinced the college to put it on their website. If you have input, you can also email me directly at cjenner01@yahoo.com, or call me on my cell phone at 847-421-7655.
Thank you Tom Wilbeck, Mr. Jenner and anyone else that supported this idea.
They should not have any reason NOT to have this service to the public.
Then one would have to ask, why?
We have many, many elderly who cannot attend for various reasons.
They are tax payers and want to be informed.
Ruh roh, Trustee Jenner.
Using your personal email address for official business opens up the communications made and received by that email address to FOIA.
1. Stop the freaking ads already.
You (MCC) are NOT just like me….or any non education related employee or retiree.
If you were, You would pay for your own retirement, medical, etc.
As for raises – you have got to be kidding.
Stop spending taxpayers money like this is your own private business.
I hope everyone watched tonight! It was a hoot!
First was the explanation on how the new trustees need to be brought up to speed on the (already decided upon) “Master Plan” for the future so they can get behind it.
I sure hope they don’t have any of their own ideas!
Later was a big discussion of the ad campaign.
Several trustees voiced concern that the ads gave the appearance of being political and that they had gotten a lot of negative feedback.
They said they’d support ads that focused on classes, but not the current campaign.
It was Smith and Kisser to the defense!
If people misinterpret these ads, that’s their fault!
It’s a great campaign, and we’re not going to change it!
Then Chris Jenner objected to paying money to a group that lobbies for more taxpayer money for community colleges.
With an absolutely straight face, Mary Miller said they weren’t lobbying, they were “educating.”
These are just a few of the highlights.
You have got to watch!
Does anybody know how to make a blooper reel and put it on YouTube?
@mattmac When I was sworn in, MCC practice was trustees used their personal or business email addresses for MCC communications.
On April 25, 2013, not a single trustee had a @mchenry.edu address, nor were email addresses for *individual* trustees posted on the college website.
My request was (and is) that direct contact information — email and cell phone — for all trustees be posted on the college website.
And the trustee_state-your-name@mchenry.edu addresses?
If you send one to trustee_jenner@mchenry.edu, it gets reviewed by MCC administration before it’s forwarded to me.
So if you want unfiltered communication, email me at cjenner01@yahoo.com.
Isn’t it just great that Big Brother MCC Administration reads trustee mchenry.edu emails.
Talk about lack of privacy.
How about a MCC Board Policy to specifically outlaw that practice.
Hello.
The board is the OVERSIGHT.
Where is the taxpayer CONFIDENTIALITY?
MCC Administration are CONTROL FREAKS.