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.

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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.”

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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 drilled a dry hole in its Freedom of Information Act request for information about Prairie Grove’s Police Pension Fund.

That’s because none exists.

Here’s the reply I received:

I missed the biggest news of Tuesday night.

It wasn’t the Grafton Township Electors voting to ratify the deal that the Township Trustees cut with Road Commissioner Jack Freund for the Town Fund to repay the loan taken out to buy the Town Hall property over a three-year period.

The 5% loan interest to finance the loan is higher than the under 1% interest being paid Grafton Township by investing it, but that issue didn’t surface and the practice will continue until the Road Commissioner pays back the last $300,000.

That savings pales in comparison to what I personally and what residents of

• Cary
• Crystal Lake
• Huntley
• Lakewood
• Prairie Grove
• Ringwood
• Woodstock

will save once a contract is signed with a supplier of electricity other than Commonwealth Edison.

Lakewood Village President Erin Smith summarizes the differences in prospective rates between a non-Com Ed supplier and Commonwealth Edison:

“The first bids came in with several rates between 4 and 5 cents per kilowatt.

“We pay approximately 6.7 – 7.1 cents today, depending on the season.

“Many contract details will need to be worked out before anything is final, but we are very encouraged by the first proposals.”

Citizens will probably save 25% to 30% once the contracts are in effect, based on current Com Ed rates and the “soft” bids to which Smith refers.

There is a requirement that two public hearings be held. No one showed up at the first Lakewood hearing.

The second was Tuesday night, the same night as the Village Board meeting.

One lady showed up.

Then, the Lakewood Village Board voted to go ahead with the “buying club.”

Customers have a right to opt out for 21 days after a letter has been mailed. Lakewood’s letter has not yet hit mailboxes.

If your municipality or unincorporated area is not on the list above, you can find the election night results here. (There were slight changes in totals, but no changes in results, after the late votes were added.)

What I thought was going to be the most uncontroversial item on the ballot wasn’t.

Having put together the bulk buying of natural gas for state government facilities across Illinois while working for the Department of Central Management Services, it seems to be that the bulk buying of electricity is a pretty straight forward proposition.

Unless you don’t trust your local government, what’s to object to?

Especially, since you can opt out of the program if you think Com Ed’s price will be better or you’d rather shop around for yourself.

I figure let someone who has more expertise do the shopping, so I voted, “Yes.”

I had gotten some emails opposed to it.One had two objections, one of which didn’t seem to make any sense to me.

The complaint was made that municipal officials would not be allowed to negotiate the delivery price.

That is completely correct and that is because the local delivery cost is set by the Illinois Commerce Commission.

I figure the person who sent the email just didn’t know that was the situation.In any event that objection was not a legitimate reason to vote “No.”

It might, however, be a reason to vote against legislators who voted to allow Com Ed to raise electricity delivery rates.  (See Senate roll call, which passed by only one vote.  See House roll call.)

The second objection was that it would force peak pricing.  I asked my Lakewood Village Administrator, but did not get an answer.

So, if you voted against the referendum in your area (unincorporated or municipality), please tell readers where you live and why you voted “No.”

Results of McHenry County electric aggregation referendums follow:

Algonquin is in two counties, McHenry and Kane. It passed by a little bit on the McHenry County side, but failed by more on the Kane County side. The result was as 1,557-1,576 vote, with early and absentee ballot still not folded in, for a 50.3% “Yes” vote and 49.7% “No.”

Now let’s look at those municipalities where people approved their referendums.

Huntley also straddles the Kane-McHenry County line. Unlike Algonquin, however, residents on both side voted for the referendum. There were 3,731 in favor and 2,870 against, when the figures were added together.  56.5% voted in favor.

I skipped Barrington Hills and Island Lake.

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.

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.

Sorry for the delay in pointing out that homeowners can appeal their assessments in McHenry Township.

It looks like the deadline is the day before the election.

The sparsely populated Dunham Township, on the south edge of Harvard, also has a November 1st appeal deadline.

Other deadlines that have not already passed are listed below:

Chemung (Harvard) - November 5th

Coral (Union) – November 5th

Dorr (Woodstock) – October 29th

Marengo – November 12th

Nunda (Northern Crystal Lake & Southern McHenry, Island Lake, Prairie Grove) – November 15th

Grafton and Algonquin Township’s assessments have not been published yet.

Many people appeal their own assessments.

Other hire attorneys.

Those appealing find 5 comparable houses with recent sales that show prices less than the fair market value of their homes and ask to be assessed comparably.  Sales listings can be found here.  They can be found in any township.

Appeal forms are here.

The Supervisor of Assessments explains the appeal process here.

Appeals this year will affect next year’s real estate tax bills.

This press release from State Senator Dan Duffy announces you have a chance next Tuesday night to find out what’s going on in Springfield from his perspective, as well as ask him questions:

Duffy public meeting to give insight into legislative process and workings of Springfield

Barrington, Illinois—Have you ever wondered,

“What really goes on in Springfield?”

State Sen. Dan Duffy (R-Lake Barrington) will be hosting a public meeting for anyone interested in learning more about the legislative process in Springfield.

The Springfield 101 Town Hall meeting will take place Tuesday, August 31 from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Prairie Grove Village Hall located at 3125 Barreville Road, Prairie Grove, IL 60012.

Senator Duffy will be addressing topics such as, how your input can become a law, factors that keep good legislation from becoming good law and the reasons why it is difficult to bring meaningful reform to Springfield.

Senator Duffy will give an update of the issues that are most important to the future success of Illinois, including the budget, pension system and education reform.

What: Springfield 101 Town Hall meeting hosted by Sen. Duffy

When: Tuesday, August 31 from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Where: Prairie Grove Village Hall, 3125 Barreville Road, Prairie Grove, IL 60012

For further information about the event visit Sen. Duffy’s website at http://www.SenatorDuffy.com or contact Sen. Duffy’s office at 847-277-7100.