Pretty clearly the folks doing the so-called “feasibility study” on the $42 million McHenry County College health club and classroom expansion project wanted to get a bigger piece of the action than $50,000 or so for determining that the idea would work.
The Phase II contract, presumably dated June 6, 2012, stated the work would take about 120 days. That means it should be done if my calculations are correct.
So I’ve asked under the Freedom of Information Act for the deliverables listed in the contract.
You see my request, which is a bit broader, but not by much, below:
McHenry County College
- copies of all checks relating to the Power Wellness study
- any documents that show any financial contribution of the private entity referred to in the public-private partnership
- a copy of the comprehensive business plan
- a copy of the student demand survey instrument and its results
- a copy of the consumer demand survey instrument and its results
- the vacated space analysis
- the institutional partner assessment
- the on campus conceptual design options
- the off campus real estate inventory survey
- the off campus conceptual design options
- the ownership and financing options
- the interim and final presentations
What do you think the junior college will allow me (and you) to see?
Let’s use some simple logic here.
(1) A feasibility study requires an independent party, someone without a monetary interest in the answer. So if Power Wellness is has a financial interest in the outcome, then MCC does NOT have a real feasibility study.
(2) Power Wellness, when originally hired, knew it would only get a contract for a second study if its conclusion was that a health club was needed. They also are interested in managing any health club that is built. Therefore they HAD a financial interest in the conclusion of their study.
(3) Therefore MCC CANNOT obtain a feasibility study from Power Wellness. Conflicts of interest can’t be washed away after the fact. This study is, as the headline says, tainted, and it will remain tainted.
(4) For MCC to continue to refer to this contract as a feasibility study when they know full well it is NOT a feasibility study means they are purposely misleading the public.
It’s a feasibility study, just not an independent feasibility study.
Happens all the time.
I don’t know if anyone’s answered this question, but one thing I’m interested in the proposed debt service schedule and if the bonds will be competitive bid or negotiated.
Taxpayers routinely get ripped off because bonds are negotiated instead of competitive bid.
And you would be amazed at the interest that shows up on the debt service schedule, because the $42 million I assume is principal only.
Here’s what a bond debt service schedule looks like.
A bond debt service schedule has columns for payment period, principal payment, interest payment, interest rate/coupon, and total payment.
There are then rows for each payment period.
The last row contains Total interest, Total Principal, and Total Payment.
Here’s something interesting.
Looking at the MCC 2012 Budget.
Page 9.
HISTORY OF TUITION AND FEE RATES.
Exact “Dollars Per Credit Hour” are not shown, just increments of $10.
MCC Year 2001 tuition was about $50 per credit hour.
MCC Year 2012 tuition is about $100 per credit hour.
http://www.mchenry.edu/finance/FY2012budget.pdf
MCC Cost per credit hour has doubled or almost doubled in 11 years.
MCC doubled tuition cost in 11 years and now proposes issuing $42 million in non referendum bonds.
Double tuition in 11 years.
Issue tens of millions in bonds without voter approval is proposed.
Here’s something else interesting.
MCC Thursday November 29, 2012 Board Packet.
Page 7.
All Funds Interest Statement.
October 31, 2012.
General Long Debt Fund.
Under Assets, Other Assets is 8,576,004.
Under Liabilities.
Accrued Expense is $61,047.
Fixed Liabilities is $5,526,986.
Other Liabilities is $5,002,305.
What’s that all about.
On Page 23 of the same report Vicky Smith reviews tax increases.
Here’s the link to the MCC Thursday November 29, 2012 Board Packet.
http://www.mchenry.edu/board/12_13/packets/112912.pdf
Here’s the MCC CAFR for FY 2011 and 2012.
http://www.mchenry.edu/finance/FY2012CAFR.pdf
http://www.mchenry.edu/finance/FY2011CAFR.pdf
How about NO MORE BONDING; let anyone who wants the club to put in their own dollars?
WHAT PART OF THE COUNTRY IS BROKE DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND? THE ECONOMY ISN’T COMING BACK, WE ARE NOT IN “RECOVERY” BECAUSE THE COLLAPSE HASN’T YET HAPPENED AND MAY TAKE SOME TIME SINCE WASHINGTON AND STATE POLS ARE “KICKING THE CAN DOWN THE ROAD”.
The grim labor force participation rate graph.
By: Moe Lane (Diary) | January 21st, 2013 at 09:30 PM | 34
This is the rock that the Obama administration’s ship of state is going to founder on:
(Data via the Bureau of Labor Statistics.)
The graph shows the labor force participation rate for the last four years. The short version is that the LFP rate shows the percentage of the population that could be working that is actually working. And as you can see, that number was remarkably stable under Bush’s term. The rate more or less stayed around 66% from calendar year 2002 to 2008… and it dropped significantly in calendar year 2009. Now, some people would argue that this is not Obama’s fault… just like they would argue that it was not Obama’s fault that the rate dropped equally significantly in calendar year 2010, and dropped equally significantly in calendar year 2011, and dropped equally significantly in calendar year 2012 (that year’s average was 63.7%). The LFP rate for December 2012 itself was 63.6%, which as CNS helpfully notes is significant, in its way: “the labor force participation rate had not been as low as 63.6 percent since 1981, the year President Ronald Reagan took over from President Jimmy Carter.”
So, basically, based on this detail and others we seem to have all signed up for a grand thought experiment: What would have happened to the USA in 1981 if Jimmy Carter had actually won reelection? The bad news is, we can’t actually opt out of said grand thought experiment. The good news is that the system really is designed to survive the occasional fumbled-fingered idiot running it. If we managed to make it through James Buchanan and Woodrow Wilson, we’ll make it through this.
Moe Lane (crosspost)
PS: I understand that the Left absolutely hates it when it’s pointed out that we’ve been steadily losing workers to despondency for the last four years. Bless their hearts, but can you blame them for trying to push back on this inconvenient truth? – The ironic bit is, of course, that progressives should be the ones screaming the loudest at Obama to get the real unemployment rate back down. You can’t run all of those government programs without tax money; and nobody smart actually thinks that you can get it all off of the ‘rich’…
Urgent to see: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-01-29/guest-post-why-employment-us-isnt-coming-back
Also see: http://www.cusdi.org/index.html#Introduction
MCC has become a rathole down which taxpayers are forced to pour dollars, and they are running a swindle to get more.
Shockingly more, and they’re doing it like any street hustler, without facts and figures that make any sense, BECAUSE THEIR NEW PLANS DON’T MAKE SENSE.
If MCC can’t (doesn’t) work, and if it isn’t accountable to taxpayers for its “product” (which two MCC students’ articles at this blog, as well as a feasibility study that puts the US “budget” to shame, prove it isn’t), then let’s stop putting money into it.
Numbers show that student enrollment has declined and census figures show that will continue.
Where’s the payback in this institution of declining value to the community?
Don’t care what happens to the “brand” MCC; if you don’t pay taxes you shouldn’t be using the services, and if you do pay taxes you know you’re being swindled.
Community colleges popped up after public schools abandoned their jobs of turning out students who were ready for the adult world of jobs (pre-1960s).
Close MCC, or let those who work there run it and keep it going using their own money… Whatever, but get it off taxpayers’ backs.