McHenry County Blog

Just under a month ago Northwest Herald reporter Brett Rowland rocked the McHenry County College political firmament by revealing that the college was considering holding a tax hike referendum:

Northwest Herald Reporter Discerns Real Reason for McHenry County College’s $137,750 Hiring of Tax Hike Firm

Although little ol’ McHenry County Blog had predicted that was the entire purpose for hiring the St. Louis Unicom-ARC political consulting firm (see related articles below), having the paper of record inform so many more folks than this blog reaches was clearly damaging to any college tax hike effort.

Today, Rowland reveals more about the tax hike support building firm Unicom-ARC. Again, it is the main front page story.

Forewarned is forearmed, as they say.

McHenry County Blog articles that might be of interest follow:

December 18, 2008 -UNICOM-ARC Hits Up Local Taxpayers Again

Saturday, January 24, 2009 – MCC Tax Hike Timeline

Friday, January 30, 2009 – McHenry County College Power Elite Nominees

Saturday, January 31, 2009 – MCC Power Elite Add-Ons

Monday, March 30, 2009 – McHenry County College Inviting Public

Wednesday, April 01, 2009 – McHenry County College MAP “Engages” 60 Community Members

Friday, July 31, 2009 – McHenry County College Citizen Engagement Process Attracts 31

Please note that these are not all the articles that have appeared here about Unicom-ARC’s activities in the Fox River Valley.

The college board is meeting tonight, by the way. You might find it interesting, although the interesting part is not identified so you could figure out at what point in the meeting the highlight will occur. The meeting starts at 6 PM.

This is the third part of my article on the MCC MAP meeting Tuesday night

The McHenry County College Promise, Todd McDonald told me, has already completely processed 650 high school graduates.

Another 170 or so await a report from the U.S. Department of Education to see if they are eligible for Free Application for Federal Student Aid. This FAFSA process takes 3-4 weeks, so high school grads who haven’t started the process yet probably won’t get an answer in time for classes to start.

“What a nice problem to have,” Ally said.

Telling me that college enrollment was up 55%, MCC Board President George Lowe observed,

A woman asked if the extra students wouldn’t cost more money, perhaps, she suggested, more than the resulting extra tuition.

Ally made two responses that I caught:

• “Our goal should be to have fuller classes running.
• “We’ll run extra sections with adjunct faculty.”

Part-time teachers are a LOT cheaper that the full-timers.

Suggestions from the tables that I jotted down included “hybrid classes.” That was defined as half in the classroom, half online.

I think it was the same table that said this about state financial assistance:

“We were hopeful that state funding might increase…but not too hopeful.”

It’s good to have a sense of humor.

Taking photos while taking notes makes it difficult to link the two. The table with the sense of humor is either above (the last one to report) or below:

Lowe took the floor at the end of the meeting and pointed out that state financial assistance had gone down from 23% to 7.9% over the last sixteen years.

That 23% was less than what the committee that led the 1967 junior college referendum effort presented to taxpayers.

The state told the organizers that it would provide one-third.

With a ten-cent referendum rate request, the committee told voters that

• the state would pay one-third
• the students would pay one-third and
• the taxpayers would pay one-third.

Obviously, the state junior college promoters lied.

Note, however from the pie chart that while the taxpayers now pay 59.6%, almost twice what voters were told their share would be, students do not pay the 33% that was presented in 1967.

Tuition brings in 29.3% now.

Part 1 is here.
Part 2 is here.

This is the second part of a three-part article on McHenry County College’s MAP meeting Tuesday. Part 1 in here. The Northwest Herald’s take, complete with shifting headline emphasis, is here.

My notes have “one cent sounds like nothing.” The “referendum” word was used.

Referring to the Property Tax Cap, Ally said,

“It’s costing the college millions of dollars each year.”

Ally impressed me with the increase in reserves that have been built up since he took office.

But his Tax Cap comment led me to reflect how differently those in government see the Tax Cap from those who are the taxpaying base.

We consider those millions “lost” to government as “savings” for us.

We know that government can spend every dollar it manages to pluck from our pockets (and from our children’s).

Factoring in the recently signed four-year faculty contract, Ally presented the chart you see above.

Coupled with the “look what just a penny increase in the tax rate will bring in,” it seems to me that the presentation was skewed toward a tax hike before the fund balance target begins to dip under the weight of the new faculty contract.

But the people at the tables didn’t bite.

One table mentioned how surprised they were at how much a penny would raise, but didn’t go so far as to recommend that taxes be raised. I think it was the one pictured above.

Questions were taken from the floor.

Kurt Begalka from the Northwest Herald asked whether increasing expenses would result into dipping into reserves.

“Not yet,” Ally replied.

“Reserves should not be used for ongoing expenses,” he continued. “That’s just not sustainable.”

Ally noted that health insurance costs were growing faster inflation. The college’s attempt to control costs resulted in employees paying 25% of the cost of insurance (50% for dental and visual) “to form a true partnership.”

I asked the total annual cost for an employee and was told that for a family it would be about $5,000. The college is self-insured, which means whatever the college cost of the health care plan the taxpayers foot the bill.

Later Begalka, at whose table I sat, pointed out that employees at many private enterprises pay 100%.

Ally said college enrollment this year is “the perfect storm.

Part 3 will address enrollment tomorrow.

That’s the number I counted sitting at tables.

21 women and 10 men.

There were about 60 at the first meeting.

I continue to believe that spending $137,750 on this project is unmerited. St. Louis referendum tax hike facilitator UNICOM-ARC is the main beneficiary.

There were only two of us at our front and center table. Naturally, we were encouraged to move to tables where there could be more interaction.

One lady invited us over, saying there were too many college people at her table.

So, the number of non-college people and non-members of the organizing committee there were at the tables had to be pretty slim.

Moderator Steve Weskerna kicked off the meeting. He asked us to pretend we were McHenry County College trustees.

The topic was finances.

Acting CEO Ron Ally, the college’s finance guy this century, gave a power point presentation that I thought unfair at only one point.

He compared a 4.2% increase in property taxes to a 1.1% increase in tuition to 1% increases in enrollment and a whole list of expenses.

You can look at the slide above (click to enlarge any image), which compares

a one penny (per $100 of assessed valuation) increase in property tax rate bringing in $962,305
to
a $1 per hour tuition increase yielding $112,794.

I learned one compares comparables to comparables.

So, from an “issue framing” point of view, I thought the presentation was slanted toward raising taxes.

More on finances tomorrow.