Post the salary information of administrator, faculty, and staff online!

By: Adam Andrzejewski
August 3, 2008

UPDATE ON THIS STORY

Read our letter to the College of DuPage Board of Trustees:
http://www.forthegoodofillinois.org/News/2008/8/4/ADAM-ANDRZEJEWSKIS-LETTER-TO-THE-COLLEGE-OF-DUPAGE-BOARD-OF-TRUSTEES/

Click Here to listen to the presentation at the July 22, 2008 COD Board of Trustees: 

“The College of DuPage, a community college in Illinois, …   now also posts a monthly treasurer's report including the total amount of cash on hand, and all receipts and disbursements in addition to investment and debt information. Checks written in June ranged from a $1.1 million bond payment to $21,574 for advertising in three local newspapers, all of which are named. That's transparency!”  National Examiner, June 22, 2008 http://www.examiner.com/a-1454026~Support_grows_for_putting_public_spending_online.html

Showcased by the National Examiner and others, the College of DuPage has become a national leader in financial transparency.  By proactively posting administrator, faculty, and staff salaries, the College of DuPage can once again spearhead much needed transparency within Illinois community colleges.  Of a total operating budget of $146 million, COD spends $106 million on administrator, faculty, and staff salaries and benefits.

We issue the clarion call… the College of DuPage should post their salary information online! 
All other community colleges in Illinois should follow suit.

Three Reasons for Community College Salary Transparency

1. Community colleges have a responsibility to be fully transparent with their hard working students.
Community colleges were not chartered as schools of elite society, rather they given the task of providing quality education to an economically sensitive and sometimes struggling contingent.  The students of community colleges are committed.  While attending school, students play many roles:  single parent, work two jobs, being retrained for a new career, etc.  Nearly all are sacrificing for education. Not only does the student body have an acute need for a valuable degree, but also for transparency in the price of that education.  Because the student’s financial sacrifice is so substantial, community colleges have additional obligation to be transparent with spending- including administrator, faculty, and staff pay.  At the College of DuPage for example, student tuition and fees account for $58 million of the $146 million operating budget.

2. Simple fairness requires that the community college be as transparent as the private property taxpayer.
The local property taxpayer-  who funds half of the community college budget-  is already transparent.  Found in most libraries, the Illinois public records database is an online records bank containing such information as private property owners’ name, address, date of sale, square footage, number of bathrooms, bedrooms, and lot size of any property. Unbeknownst to most people, the database even details personal information such as the purchase price, down payment and initial mortgage amount. 

3. The salary information of our community colleges is already the public’s right to know under the Freedom of Information Act. 
Therefore, this proposal does not change the law, only the path to information access.  Currently, an online repository of Illinois community college salary information does not exist.  In the k-12 public schools, since 1999, the Illinois people have had access to teacher and administrator salaries through the heroic efforts of www.ChampionNews.net .  When government functions properly, there should be no need for a private sector, non-profit organization to use the Freedom of Information Act to gather and post the financial information of a public entity. 

Good governance should begin in local government.  Taking proactive action, our local community colleges should make an individual commitment to financial transparency and take action on their own behalf. 

As nationwide leader in education transparency, the College of DuPage is just the institution to lead the way!

For The Good Of Illinois.