McHenry County Blog

It started with the 22-month long contract negotiations between the Prairie Grove Elementary School Board and the Illinois Education Association affiliate called the Prairie Grove Teachers Association.

Word is that there were harsh words during the negotiations until at the end they were brought into the sunlight, so to speak, and the public was allowed to watch what was going on.

Then, a minor disagreement resulted in a strike.

That it was minor is evidenced by strike’s being only one-day.

It was over before I got a chance to go out and take a photo.

Then the IEA Prairie Grove Teachers Association decided to run a slate against the four incumbents.

The candidates backed by the teachers’ union,

• Laura Barker
• John Bowman
• Margaret Ponga
• Rick Salvo

beat the highest vote getter among the incumbents, Laura Domoto, by 38 votes.  All four were elected.

Take a look at the door-to-door campaign piece of the IEA Four:

Sorry for the fuzziness of the copy.  (If anyone sends me a clearer copy, I shall substitute the images.)

19th Century military theorist Carl von Clausewitz said, “War is the continuation of Politik by other means.”

The over six-hour meeting Tuesday night (ending shortly after one AM) certainly demonstrates that if one replaced the word “war” with “meetings” in von Clausewitz’ axiom, not much has changed since the 1800′s.

At the first meeting, the new ruling coalition voted themselves into all of the offices, which were vacated when the incumbents lost.

Elected Board President was Margaret Ponga.

She ran Tuesday night’s marathon meeting.

(Background to the meeting from the now-outsiders’ viewpoint can be found here.)

Read the agenda and you can see why it took over six hours.

Two of the agenda items demonstrate how the teachers’ union exercised its new power in District 46:

7. Approval of the termination of all business with Ottosen Britz Kelly Cooper Gilbert & DiNolfo, Ltd effective May 14, 2013.

8. Appoint Robbins Schwartz as interim counsel to conduct all legal business until such time new legal representation has been decided by the board of education.

But, ironically, the law firm that handled the teacher negotiations fired the Board before the new Board could terminate it.

Nevertheless, the new Board majority insisted on passing a motion to terminate the Ottosen law firm.

Another irony is that the old law firm charged $195 per hour, while the new, interim one charges $235 per hour.

There will be a search for new permanent legal representation.

= = = = =
More tomorrow.

An email from former and just defeated Prairie Grove School District 46 Board  member Laura Domoto about the Tuesday, May 14th, Board meeting.

Dear Friends,

Your child’s education and programming at Prairie Grove Schools are being threatened.

The newly elected board wants to revisit many items that were studied and voted on previously by your board of education.

Things are definitely in jeopardy. If you want to save our school we need your HELP NOW.

Please show up and address the board on Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 7pm. [See below for restrictive instructions.]

You cannot sit back and watch our school district spiral down in failure. It is time for you to take action now.

We know what has happened out our neighboring school in Cary and we cannot let that happen here at Prairie Grove.

Attached you will find the agenda for Tuesday, May 14, 2013 Board of Education Meeting.

PLEASE come. You have 3 minutes to speak, and no one can be denied the opportunity to do so. Please speak for the 3 minutes and say what you think. This is a very important day.

PLEASE forward to you friends and if you have questions please feel free to contact me or other current or past board members.

I am going to be frank and not beat around the bush, this agenda is ludicrous.

The newly elected board members have put on the agenda the following items which should be of concern for you:

Visitors in the Lunchroom

We all know that what has happened in our country and Sandy Hook. It is the schools priority to provide a safe place for the students and staff.

Yes, we would love to spend time with our kids at lunch, but the safety of our children is of utmost importance.

Last year the district worked with area police departments to make sure our students were safe while we had two lock downs.

There also were other incidents where administrators had to step in to insure children’s safety.

The administration and past BOE eliminated visitors at lunch to protect our students, but now the new board wants to throw away that decision and make the school an unsafe place for our children.

Their recommendation does include limiting where visitors go, but in order to do so, the district would need to hire additional staff to monitor these visitors. Is this what we should be paying for?

Master Schedule

This new JRHS master schedule has taken the administrative team a year of careful and meticulous research to make sure that the needs of our students are met as we change to ‘common core standards’ and while our enrollments are decreasing.

Many man hours were put into a well planned schedule for our students, and the administration has worked with teachers to set the staffing for next year.

A parent advisory group provided input, and there was a Board meeting that all district parents were invited to where the changes were discussed.

Teachers are working on next years plans, and in some cases have modified the topics they are covering this year to address the upcoming changes.

And now the newly elected board members are the education experts?

They feel that and a different approach should be taken, and that a new committee needs to be formed to address and evaluate this.

I guess if it isn’t the newly elected board members vision, it must be wrong.

I must also say that none of the new board members are certified teachers, or have PhD, or Master’s degrees in education.

New Lawyer

One of the new Board members has been very vocal about her unhappiness with the District’s legal council during the teacher’s contract negotiations.

The lawyer was present, however, to protect the assets of the taxpayers.

The past board feels that there several occasions during negotiations where the law firm saved the district considerable money with their recommendations.

This board member stated that the money spent on legal fees should have instead been given to the teachers.

This board member has now decided that the firm that we had PRIOR to our current law firm, should be hired for a new ‘temporary’ appointment.

This is NOT in the best interest of our district, taxpayers, employees, or students.

We have a contract with the current law firm; they were chosen during a formal bid process.

With this firm our costs have been considerable lower FOR EACH OF THE PAST 4 YEARS than they were with that previous law firm (the one they are suggesting re-hiring!).

The proposal is to hire this law firm without going through a bidding process?

Have rates been determined?

AT WHAT COST TO THE TAXPAYERS?

Who negotiated those rates?

That SHOULD be the job of the Superintendent and Finance Director.

Superintendent

The agenda has a full page of directives for the Superintendent that have not been discussed in public with all the board members.

It is my belief that the new board members are trying to set up the Superintendent for failure, have no understanding that she has a job to do with the school, and are piling up numerous items at once, to make her fail.

The Superintendent has a contract that specifically lists her deliverables for the upcoming school year, so if she spends all her time on these new items, she will not be able to fulfill her contract.

Committee meetings

Several years ago the Board changed committee meetings to be open Committee of the Whole events in the evening where anyone with an interest could voice an opinion.

The Board now wishes to go back to ‘closed committee’ meetings, where the members are appointed by the board and attendance is limited to ‘a chosen few’ attendees.

Finally, at the meeting it will be interesting to notice whether or not the 4 new members come to the meeting already having made decisions related to all of these new items.

If so, how was that done?

Board discussions of district issues need to take place in an open meetings setting; if not, it is a violation of the OPEN MEETINGS ACT.

These board members have not even been on the new board for 1 week and they are making substantial changes that would negatively impact our district and students.

They have not taken any training or learned about our policy and procedures.

They don’t have the slightest understanding of governance or the role of a board member, and they do not understand how a board is supposed to work collaboratively with the administration.

Over the past 10 years while I was on the board, our school’s financial status improved WHOLE our test scores and the quality of our education also increased.

These are all decisions and actions that the new board will try to take on Tuesday that will detrimentally affect our students and our taxpayers.

Please attend the meeting to voice your concerns so that the new board doesn’t start tearing away at all of the decisions that have generated these successes.

Sincerely,

Laura Domoto
District 46 Board of Education Member 2003-2013

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The Board must want to discourage people from speaking in public comment, because it has the following rule listed at the bottom of its agenda:

“Any District resident may request time to speak to this Board by notifying Mary Sutfin, Recording Secretary of the Board of Education, prior to 4:00 P.M. on the Monday immediately preceding a regularly scheduled Board meeting or be heard by this Board at this time. The Board asks that comments are held to under 3 minutes and that no personnel names are mentioned and/or individuals by job title.”

= = = = =
Here’s an article about the 2007 elections. Domnoto was Board President when she ran that year.

A teacher about to lose his job spoke to the new school board.

In 2009, the old Board renewed the Superintendent’s contract before the new Board was sworn in. Election results are shown.

The Prairie Grove Teachers Association is in the news today, so I thought you might be interested in the latest message from the teachers’ union.  If you want to see more about the impasse, check out the unions’ web site.

ATTENTION PG DISTRICT 46 RESIDENTS

Are you confused?
We are too.

• Are the teachers going on strike?

The PGTA is doing everything we can to avoid going on strike. We continue to meet with the BOE negotiating team and will keep all options open to settle this contract.

• Will the contract that the PGTA is requesting cause a tax increase?

No, the PGTA offer is based on the increase in revenue to the District. As the economy goes, so goes the teacher’s raises.

• Will the PGTA contract proposal cause a financial hardship to the district or taxpayers or have a negative impact on programs?

NO. The District Business Manager reported at the August 14, 2012 Board meeting that in his proposed budget he had over-estimated expenditures, under-estimated revenue and still anticipated a $167,000 surplus for fiscal year 2013.

• How far apart, financially, are the two sides?

Currently the difference is less than $20,000. To keep this in perspective consider that the District has an $11.6 million budget.

• Are all the issues financial?

No, there are some procedural concerns and language that needs to be changed as a result of State law changes.

• It’s been reported that “the biggest barrier is getting a date (for negotiations)” Is this true?

The PGTA negotiations team has been responsive to all requests for meetings with the BOE team. The PGTA has also offered many meeting dates and we currently have a negotiation session scheduled for Thursday September 6, 2012.

• Where can you get more information?

https://sites.google.com/site/pgta46

McHenry County Blog has surveyed school districts with major presences in McHenry County and discovered that union employees paid $3.8 million in dues during calendar year 2010.

The total amount was $3,825,572.

Contracts are typically for more than one year and most expenses would in contract negotiation year.

Most are from dues paid by teachers, but there are also office worker and school bus drivers.

Most go to the Illinois Education Association-National Education Association.

Part of the collective bargaining proposal made by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is to end mandatory union membership.

Illinois, of course, has laws that force all employees of a bargaining unit to pay dues.

The legislation would require that teacher union officials collect their own dues, rather than having as a payroll deduction, as is the case in all of the districts below.

To no one’s surprise, employees of the largest district examined, Carpentersville Unit District 300, paid the most dues.  The total was over $1.1 million.

• Barrington Unit District 220 – $554,555
• Alden-Hebron Unit District 19 – $22,427
• Cary Grade School District 26 – $52,254
• Crystal Lake Grade School District 47 – 315,342
• Crystal Lake High School District 155 – $287,202
• Carpentersville Unit District 300 – $1,122,392
• Fox River Grove Grade School District 3 – $23,599
• Harvard Unit School District 50 – $96,745
• Huntley Unit School District 158 – $356,047
• Johnsburg Unit District 12 – $106,055
• Marengo-Union Grade School District 165 – $48,778
• Marengo High School District 154 – $30,005
• McHenry Grade School District 15 – $207,111
• McHenry High School District 156 – $109,331
• Prairie Grove Grade School District 46 – $10,863
• Richmond-Burton (Nippersink) Grade School District 2 – $59,429
• Richmond-Burton High School District 157 – $37,592
• Riley Grade School District 18 – $9,161
• Wonder Lake (Harrison) School District 36 – $13,249
• Woodstock Unit School District 200 – $372,595

Governor Pat Quinn thinks that consolidating schools will save big money because fewer administrators would be required.

Reading the Daily Herald article, I notice that no mention is made of equalizing up elementary school teacher salaries to the level paid by the overlying high school districts.

All Quinn mentions is saving $100 million in administrative costs. That’s well under one-half of one percentage of what’s spent on schools in Illinois.

Pretty much peanuts, in other words.

The Northwest Herald has bought into the argument, also incorrectly assume that consolidating hundreds of school districts in Illinois will save big money.

“… there’s no good reason why towns such as Cary, Crystal Lake and McHenry should have separate elementary and high school districts.”

That’s what the Northwest Herald wrote Thursday.  (Look quickly.  Soon you will have to pay to see it.)

Might I suggest that a salary comparison be made?

Look what took me less than ten minutes to find.

High school salaries in District 155 are higher than those in Crystal Lake Grade School District 47, Cary Grade School District 26 and Prairie Grade School District 46.

Let me list them:

• Crystal Lake District 155 – $91,573 (412 teachers)
• Cary District 26 – $68,489 (198 teachers)
• Fox River Grove 3 – $60,507 (41 teachers)
• Prairie Grove District 46 – $59,840 (68 teachers)
• Crystal Lake District 47 – $57,788 (564 teachers)

The weighted average of grade school teachers in the three districts is $60,505.

The difference between the average weighted elementary school salary and the District 155 High School teacher’s average salary of $91,573 is $31,066.

Let’s do some multiplication.

First, let’s estimate. You know, what grade school students are taught to do.

What’s $31,000 times 900?

Hey, that’s over $25 million.

The exact figure is $27,058,486 my calculator says and it didn’t take tens of thousands of dollars paid to some Northern Illinois professors to figure that out.

So, let’s be rational and assume no teacher would be willing to take a pay cut and all grade school teachers would want to be put on the same salary schedule now enjoyed by area high school teachers.

Looking at these figures, it is hard to believe they would not expect an average raise of $31,000 if consolidation were to occur.

Now, I’ll admit that I have not made detailed comparisons to take into account the longevity bonus that high and grade school teachers get.

Maybe after making such adjustments the raise for unifying the pay schedules wouldn’t average over $31,000 a grade school teacher.

Pick your number and multiply it by 871.

Then, compare that mid-$20-some million number with the $100 million statewide savings that Quinn projects in savings from unneeded administrators.

Anyone think the savings by getting rid of redundant administrators within the Crystal Lake-Cary-Fox River Grove-Prairie Grove area would approach $25 million?

So why is the Governor proposing something that is going to cost every part of the state with both high and grade school districts big money?

Would I be being too cynical to suggest that Quinn may be trying to reward Illinois Education Association members who supported his re-election?

Would anyone think Illinois union leaders would let teachers in the same unified district be on two different pay scales?

The IEA Uniserve Directors would be knocking at school administrators’ doors the day after a merger.  Maybe before.

Proof is how teacher unions won’t allow a consolidated school district to use even two different pay scales.

The elementary physical education teacher that teaches kindergarten P.E. classes is on the same pay scale as the high school math and science teachers.

Only in editorial and Quinn Fantasy Land unions would be helping to save money.

The result would be teachers hearing the sound of “Ca Ching!”

Years later you would likely read editors bemoaning how this couldn’t have been foreseen.

But that’s what collective bargaining will bring if all school districts are shoved into the unit district mold.

It will be the result of collective bargaining. You know, what the fight in Madison, Wisconsin, is all about.

The filing has just ended, but lots of grade school board candidates in McHenry County are assured of election.

Here at Election Central, McHenry County Blog declares the fifteen candidates listed below elected.

In Fox River Grove Grade School District 3, there are four openings and four candidates, so there is no contest.

4-year Term (three to be elected)

• Jertry Blohm
• Thomas Mollet
• Devin Bright

2-year (one to be elected)

• Stephen Pickering

McHenry Grade School District 15 is another district where there is no contest.  Get enough signatures to place yourself on the ballot and you won.

2-Year-Term (one to be elected)

• John O’Neill (incumbent)

4-Year-Term (three to be elected)

• Mike Hettermann
• Paul Santopadre
• Patrick Miller (incumbent)

In Cary Grade School District 26, the candidate for the two-year term is assured of election:

• Floyd Myers (one to be elected)

There are four seats that will be on the ballot in Wonder Lake (Harrison) Grade School District 36 and four candidates.  All will obviously win.

Two-year term (one to be elected)

• George Wood

Four-year term (three to be elected)

• Linda Amettis
• Karen Parks
• Laurie Alsot

Prairie Grove Grade School District 46 has but two candidates for three vacancies. Democratic Party candidate for County Board, Lori McConville is one of them.  She will win pubic office, as will the other candidate who filled.

• Khushali Shah
• Lori McConville

The deadline for filing a write-in candidacy with the McHenry County Clerk is Thursday, February 3, 2011.  Get more votes than any other write-in candidate and you’re elected.

Elgin Unit School District 46 is the second largest in Illinois. Only Chicago is larger.

Its relatively long term Chief Financial Officer John Prince went off to Plainfield and was replaced by McHenry County College’s finance guy Ron Ally.

He lasted a year until he went to back to the world of community colleges at Harper.

Now U46 has promoted Prairie Grove Grade School Board member Dale Burnidge as a partial replacement.

Not quite Chief Financial Officer, Director of Financial Operations, instead.

Burnidge will earn $105,250.

The district is facing a $40 million hole in spite of passing a massive Working Case Fund referendum a couple of years ago.

Saturday’s column by Northwest Herald Editor Dan McCaleb started out praising Woodstock for not raising taxes to pay for something planned but not without financing.

McCaleb lays that off against Prairie Grove Grade School District 46′s defeated and retiring board members having extended the contract of Superintendent Mary Fasbender and given her a raise, despite a probably majority against that position when new members are sworn in.

He also points out McHenry County College Board members’ keeping resigned MCC President Walt Packard on the payroll for $200,000 a year for over a year.

The NW Herald editor reminds readers that neither the college nor the Prairie Grove board members would explain their actions.

Friday afternoon I talked to the attorney for the college and asked for whatever statement had been sent the Herald. That was after asking media person Christina Haggerty for the same thing.

Neither managed to get me anything.

So, despite the bright spot in Woodstock, I would conclude that McCaleb is too optimistic about government.

It is not unpredictable.

It is all too predictable.

Certainly that is the case with McHenry County’s very junior College and Prairie Grove Grade School.

If either can hide information from the public each will do and has consistently done so.

Even though, no because the board majority will shift as a result of April 7th school board election results, the outgoing board decided to give District 46 School Board Superintendent Mary Fasbender a raise and a contract extension through mid-2011.

At least that’s what I think happened.

The school board majority wouldn’t go farther than the wording of the motion that was passed in explaining the effect of what the did.

The most important motion was to align the superintendent’s salary and benefits and not to exceed the tax cap rate.

Whatever that means.

When Northwest Herald reporter Crystal Lindell asked for a copy of the contract, board member Laura Domoto said it had not yet been approved or signed by either side.

If I could characterize the board majority’s attitude in one word, it would be

“manana”

In short, not a board that wanted the public to know what it had just done.

Lindell said she would file a Freedom of Information request.

This, you may remember, is the school board that ran me out of the last school board meeting I attended. They called “Officer Friendly.”

The reason?

I laughed too loud.

At least I think that was the reason. If you check the link above, you’ll see my taking pictures through the Venetian blinks really irritated some of those inside the secret meeting.

It led to the WANTED poster that Crystal Lake Heck of a Guy blogger Allan Showalter developed. I liked it so much, it’s the one you see to the bottom right or here.

The Northwest Herald had a Northwestern University intern covering the meeting, which led to an article headlined

But, back to last night.

It really was not surprising to see a disappearing board majority extend its influence.

What was most interesting to me was the woman who was shouting at minority board member Charlotte Kremer two years ago, now Board President Karen Bowman, was now aligned with her in opposition to giving Superintendent Fasbender the raise and contract extension.

I know that politics consists of a series of shifting alliances, but this shift surprised me. Really surprised me.

Bowman’s opposition was made known only by her negative vote.

Kremer was more outspoken:

“I do not agree with the salary.

“I think the salaries should be frozen for the coming year due to the economic situation.”

And, later,

“You are trying (to maintain) continuity with the extension of the contract.

“(But) it’s not on the agenda.

“(This is) in violation of the Open Meetings Act.”

“Our legal counsel has validated our agenda,” Domoto replied.

“I did not see any writing from a legal counsel,” Kremer countered.

Returning to her continuity theme, Kremer said,

“The community did not want continuity. You’re not representing the community if you vote on this today.”

After the meeting she said,

“It’s just absolutely the wrong move to make,”

Attempting to explain the near opaque compensation increase just approved, Kremer said that it involved averaging increases in the Cost of Living.

Since 2009 was a mere one-tenth of one percent, the board and superintendent must be counting on inflation for Fasbender to get much of a raise.

Before I arrived there was more irony.

Tom Bieschke. the junior high school’s technology teacher-coordinator who pleaded for his job two years ago has been elected to the school board, having soundly beaten (702-284) Manish Shah for the two year term, spoke to the board. Shah at least acquiesced in Bieschke’s not being given tenure.

Bieschke, of course, recognized the old board still had the authority to do things like raise the superintendent’s salary and extend her contract, but thought it was inappropriate, considering the way the balloting turned out.

Also speaking was newly-elected board member Mischelle Yantis.

She made the same points, but is on the side of the current board majority.

You can see from 4-year term results that newcomer Vicki Marconi ran first with 767 votes.

Minority member Charlotte Kremer ran second with 669 votes.

She was followed by now majority bloc member Dale Burnidge, who got 655 votes.

Mischelle Yantis received 641 and majority bloc member Sean Rathjen came in last with 615.

While all the outsiders won, the district is obviously pretty evenly split.

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You see the full board on top after they came out of secret deliberations on District 46 Grade School Superintendent Mary Fasbender’s raise and contract extension. During most of the meetnig she was inside with the board members. She is seen waiting to be readmitted in the next photograph.

Officer Friendly is seen next by the finance guy, who left for Lake Bluff or some place nearby.

Board President Karen Bowman is below on the left. To her right, slightly lower in the story is Charlotte Kremer.

Laura Domoto is down a bit on the left hand side of the page.

The two men facing each other were opponents for the two-year term. Manish Shah is on the left, Tom Bieschke is on the right.

The smiling woman is Mischelle Yantis, being congratulated on her election to the board.

In the blue sweater is Dale Burnidge, re-elected to the board. The man looking over his glasses is Stephen Todd, who did not seek election. The gray haired gentleman is Sean Rathjen, who ran for a four-year board seat and placed last.

And seen in the photo credits is the elementary school motto, I guess. It says,

RESPECT
OTHERS

RESPECT
YOUR SCHOOL

It appears the Prairie Grove teachers haven’t gotten the same memo from the Illinois Education Association that Huntley District 158 teachers received.

Northwest Herald reporter Kelly Mahoney writes that the Grade School District 46 teachers got “a total salary compensation increase of 3.25 percent in the first year, 3.42 percent in the second year and the third-year increases will align with the tax cap.”

The tax cap is the consumer price index.

The article says the last three year contract had 5.6%, 5.4% and 5.3% increases, which, of course, were way above the increase in the cost of living.

The Huntley School Board is offering $5.4% in the first year, then the CPI, plus 0.65% for the last tow years.

That offer has been rejected by the Huntley Education Association.

District 46′s board is the one who called out the police when I took photographs through its library’s Venetian blinds and laughed too loud, leading to Allan Showalter of Heck of a Guy blog in Crystal Lake to call the police to evict me from the school building.

All imagess may be enlarged by clicking on them.