Boards just don’t get it
Further scrutiny deserves to be paid on two locally elected school boards whose actions and lack of openness are being called into question.
Maybe Prairie Grove District 46 school board members and McHenry County College trustees had good reasons for actions they took recently relating to their highest-paid employees. But their refusal to provide any explanations sows exactly the sort of distrust they are now reaping from constituents.
We’ll start with District 46 board members, who approved a two-year contract extension for Superintendent Mary Fasbender on Tuesday night without comment or the disclosure of any details of that contract. In fact, the board still has not released Fasbender’s previous contract, for which this newspaper has filed a Freedom of Information Act request.
The timing of the extension is suspect since Fasbender already was under contract until June 2010. Also, three outgoing board members – Manish Shah, Sean Rathjen and Stephen Todd – voted in favor of extending the contract even though three new board members will be seated this week.
Board President Karen Bowman and board member Charlotte Kremer, both of whom will be part of the new board, voted against the extension and urged the rest of the board to wait until the entire incoming board is seated. That is a reasonable request.
Again, maybe there was a good reason to extend Fasbender’s contract. But we haven’t heard it, and neither have District 46 taxpayers. What’s even more disturbing is that board members won’t disclose the details. Apparently, they believe that what the district pays its superintendent is no one’s business but theirs. They couldn’t be more wrong.
Similar stonewalling remains among McHenry County College Board members who approved paying former President Walt Packard his $188,564 salary plus medical and retirement benefits until June 2010, even though Packard resigned abruptly in February – a decision Packard says he made because he needed to take care of an ailing wife.
That information also was obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, because the board apparently didn’t feel district taxpayers needed to know how their money was being spent and why.
The work of elected officials often goes unappreciated. But that’s partly because taxpayers get sore when elected officials thumb their noses at them.
