Tonight was the last District 150 Board of Education meeting that will be televised live on Comcast’s education public access channel 17. From now on the meeting will be broadcast a week delayed — and with the public comment period excised. It’s increasingly easy to see why the district would not want this portion of the meeting on television. They want to be able to control the image of the district, the board, and the administration. But during the public comment time, a more unflattering image is often presented. And sometimes it exposes things the administration wants to keep hush-hush.
Like tonight.
Rumors of unapproved clerical raises were substantiated at tonight’s school board meeting, the Journal Star reports:
The union representing clerical workers at Peoria School District 150 is filing a grievance after learning 10 of its members in the central administration building were arbitrarily given raises in November now totaling more than an estimated $80,000, officials said Monday.
The raises were rescinded Monday, effective immediately.
Debbie Chavez, former president of Local 6099 Peoria Federation of Support Staff, which represents some 650 clerical, cafeteria and paraprofessional workers, told School Board members during public comments [emphasis added] on Monday that both the union and the School Board had been left in the dark about the raises approved by the administration, which she said boosted the pay of some by more than 50 percent.
Interim Superintendent Norm Durflinger defended the raises and said they didn’t violate the collective bargaining agreement … even though they were kept a secret from the union and the school board … even though he rescinded them effective immediately. He’s going to sit down and talk to the union about the raises … now that they know about them. Whoops.
I have to admit, I was skeptical about this scandal when the rumors first started flying on my blog. It sounded too ridiculous to be true. Imagine giving just a few clerical workers humongous raises — an $8/hour raise in one case — at the same time the district is pleading poverty, laying off teachers, closing schools, and cutting out live broadcast of the school board meetings. Nobody would be that stupid.
And yet….
If the school district were trying to destroy every last ounce of trust the public might have for them, I don’t know what more they could do than what they’re doing now.
My suggestion: Now that they’ve rescinded the raises, they should have enough money to broadcast the meetings live and in their entirety. After all, finances were the reason cited for going to a one-week-delayed, censored broadcast. Now that they can save $80,000 in five months, they should have plenty of money to restore the live feed and let the public see their representatives in action on Monday nights, right?
What an absolute joke.
Is it this bad in other cities?
In all fairness. Are the Dunlap school board meetings broadcast? East Peoria school district? Morton? Washington? Would these districts have a better or worse image if they did? Do these schools operate all on the up n up? or is it maybe that as long as the students are performing well no one looks critically at their goings on?
Mary Davis was able to operate as she did for a long time because, well… Lindbergh was a ‘good’ school.
PCHS broadcasts their meetings on Wednesdays following the Monday night meeting, except for June and July.
The worst thing Dist. 150 can do at this point is to become less transparent.
Scarier than the public comments was the Board discussion at the end of the meeting when they were discussing the allocation of PBC building funds like a bunch of Wal-Mart employees trying to decide where to move the gumball machine.
EPCHS and EP Dist 86 meetings are broadcast on tape delay like PCHS. While I have not watched them, I believe that they broadcast the entire meeting although it is rare that someone comments at the meetings.
During those comments at the end, I was amazed to hear David Gorenz’s comment that they are spending over 17 million dollars to save the little bit of money to be saved from closing Woodruff. I’m sure that speakers mentioned that often, and I am equally as sure that Gorenz did not express any misgivings when the vote was taken and as the plans unfolded to spend millions on remodeling Peoria High.
If a substitute teacher works from 8:30 to 3:30 they are paid $75. They must have a college degree. That’s $10 an hour, no bennies. They get $85 a day if they agree to go ANYWHERE in the district. I have been told these secretaries do deserve raises, but like Emtronics says, so do alot of other people. It’s sad the way they were pushed under the bus in this instance, given extra money just to have it yanked out from under them. I would think that alone would be grounds for a lawsuit. The way this district handles things is beyond me.
So… bribing administration clerical help to not go public or talk about the various legal problems… what’s the big deal?
It’s for for the good of the children. What would happen to our children if the State and Federal investigators shut down the schools?
Huh? They might actually have a chance to learn something? Oh puh-leese, everyone knows schools is where we learn EVERYTHING.
charlie – funny you should mention that. There are a lot of people that suspect these raises were hush money.
Charlie-
The timing is sure interesting. This was just a few months after Broderick abrubtly left the district and was at a time when it was pretty evident Hinton would be exiting the district early. Could be something there or it could all be a coincendence. I guess the question to be answered is why given the financial condition of the district did this happen when it did? What was significant about November? How where these staff different than others in the district? Most people today are doing more and getting paid less.
If I were a Board Member I would be furious!!!
Another question. If there were sound reasons for giving the raises, why did they rescind them so quickly?????
Mazr: probably ,they just come here , even as a “Temp ” until we can be “taken again ”
You do not give raises when you are BROKE ! but then it’s not their $$$
Think how bad it would be if Mayor gets his hooks in ?
Durflinger is left holding the bag–to offer explanations as to why Hinton ok’d the raises. And, I agree with Charlie that the board members should be furious. They simply have to start being more curious about what’s going on in the district, so they won’t be blindsided all the time.
I believe that the finger-pointing that Kevin Lyons referred to in the MD case was going on during this time.
I am not convinced that the Board members did NOT know about these raises. Did one of them deny knowing about them? I don’t remember reading that anywhere. It wouldn’t surprise me if they did know about the raises and true to form, not question it or do anything about it.
Another question that has arisen – were any of the employees that recieved raises a relative of Mr. Hintons?
I believe Wolfmeyer was quoted in the PJS as saying she just found out about the raises.
WMBD 1470 has more on this story
http://www.1470wmbd.com/iNDistrict-150-faces-union-grievance/6899029
Ask Laura Patelle… she’ll either tell you the truth or not tell you anything.
Would this case be one for Lyons to investigate? Is a vote required to change the public comment peroid?
Does anyone know if the raise information (amount and to whom) has been foia’d?
Just because Wolfmeyer said it doesn’t mean its true. I think she is also the one taht told the press that the Board didn’t know anything about Julie McArdle’s allegations against Mary Davis before they fired her.
If you were an investigative reporter and this info was anonomously leaked to you, would you have bothered to check it out? Does not knowing the name of the secret teller make the facts less true? IMO, telling someone not to tell anyone what you did is a sure indication you did something you knew was wrong.
Nice to see the PJS reporting on this. It is discouraging to see this type of secretive behavior going on in D150. You would think that with all the recent legal issues and bad press they would avoid doing anything that would be viewed as questionable. When will MD be fired? Are they now going to wait for a conviction?
I believe that there wasn’t a secret teller–one of the jobs were open and when it was posted, the high salary was noticed.
The WMBD article says that Durflinger said the board didn’t know about the raises until 2 or 3 weeks ago–so what would they have done about it if the issue hadn’t been raised publicly? Sounds as though cover-up was the plan.
OK so who gets fired, or forced to resign immediately? Glad the district is now being transparent to the public!
Is it true they were reclassified from Administrativce Clerks to Data Processing Systems Analysts?
Yes, Anon it is true. Accounting clerks make $17.07 at the top of the pay scale and Systems Analyst at the top make $26.66. Quite a jump in pay, wouldn’t you say. Especially for a receptionist.
So, someone has elevated work responsibilities and are given greater compensation, others in the union whose responsibilities don’t change want the same increase. Admin rescinds raise and union will sue and file grievances on both sides of the question and cry foul…..is that it in a nutshell? But heh, it’s all about the kids. Just pay me more money!!
Still don’t understand how the clerks could be reclassified as Systems Analysts? What am I missing????????
The clerical contract salary grades are designated with an alphabetic letter and groups job functions. The top grade was a J and that covered the data processing computer analysts positions. The 10 positions were supposedly reassessed to have higher responsibilities and thus became a J grade. Since this action was done without union knowledge or input then the printed contract only shows the analyst description in J. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not defending this action – just trying to explain the confusion of how it seems that Accounting Clerks suddenly became analysts.
Without Malice-
Thanks for the explanation 🙂
OK–now I’m confused. I sort of understand how it would be possible for clerks in payroll to be upgraded from accounting clerks to systems analysts, but what does that have to do with clerks working the human resources who also got the raise–how much did their job descriptions (and actual duties) change?
Jim Stowell, I’m sure you’re sneaking a peak at these comments. Those of us in the audience last night can’t hear the board members talk when there is silence, so we certainly couldn’t hear them visiting as the parents and the young authors exited and the people who had given up their seats came in. But the mikes for television did pick up Jim’s comment when he asked Mrs. Wolfmeyer “Can we lock the doors?” Apparently, Wolfmeyer thought it was funny. Also, a Woodruff teacher who gave up her seat when asked to leave tried to turn in her card to speak when she returned. Wolfmeyer told her she was too late. Rules are rules, you know. Just like contracts are contracts???
Sharon,
Think of it as being Dimke’s little harbor in the D150 island…when the tide comes in all the boats rise the same. Same way those staff are under her and they all work together – you think that if just one, two or say even 9 got the hush hush raises and the others didn’t that this could have been hidden this long?
All of this would be fine if they had reclassified the job and posted it for anyone that qualified for it to be interviewed. The goal is to get the most qualified personnell possible to work on behalf of our children. Our schools are NOT in existance to make sure that employees and friends of administrators get the highest pay possible. It is unbelievable how much this school board and administration have lost sight of the best interests of our CHILDREN. Shame, shame on all of you for once again putting on display the absolute arrogance and callousness you feel towards children and taxpayers of Peoria.
One other thought–shouldn’t administrative positions be cut during these tough economic times? What good does it do to cut positions (like administrative assistants) and then raise other salaries to spend what was saved? The public then believes that an administrative position has been cut to save money–when that isn’t the case at all–no money was saved.
Now that the raises have been rescinded, board meetings can now be broadcast. The district just received some additional income. Let’s keep digging and see if we can find more hush money.
I’ll betcha the Systems Analyst position has a confidentiality clause to it.
AS a taxpayer, I am asking for the resignation/firing of the human resource director of District 150. She misused her position and has instilled another sense of mistrust in this already muddy puddle called District 150. Time this community restores integrity to this district and NOT just the WORD integrity hanging on the wall in the boardroom.
Elaine Hopkins has written an excellent account of last night’s meeting with some added thoughts about Paul Vallas, etc. http://peoriastory.typepad.com/
resignation: But was she pressured from someone else? Hinton? If she was not, then she should resign.
Just read Elaine’s article at Peoriastory.com. She made the point that they could have kept the summer school program for the amount of the raises. Makes me feel sick in the pit of my stomach. It’s all about the kids.
Well Sharon, we are not far off in our view that the HR Director’s leadership skills and knowledge should be called into question relating to this matter. If she were knowledgeable about labor relations, she would have insisted this matter be dealt with in a different manner. Perhaps these workers’ jobs have changed so significantly that it was a matter of internal equity that their jobs be re-evaluated and their pay adjusted and the District needed to act, but obviously not in this fashion.
With the announcement of the administrative reorg, I was VERY disappointed to see that the HR Director position/current incumbent would not be under scrutiny, since her reported qualifications in the area of employee relations and/or labor relations seemed nonexistent. Perhaps with this incident, the new Super and Board will take another look at whether she is a “good fit” for the job. They should.
Frustrated, I agree. I can’t wrap my head around the idea that she, as a new employee, did this on her own–she would have nothing to gain from doing this favor for 10 clerical people. There just has to be more to the story. Also, I can’t help but believe that payroll and HR would still need some clerks at their current level–not all 10 were suddenly asked to do the work of an administrative assistant. That just doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t like to see Dimke hung on this one if she was told to give the raises by a superior. If that’s the case, she, too, should have been a whistleblower. I do believe that some company could make millions selling whistles to District 150 employees.
Hey Frustrated: Hold your horses, the new Super may not be the new Super after all. Seems she has submitted credentials two times to the ISBE and they say they have never received anything on her yet. Check out the latest pjstar. I believe that the HR director is a good fit. She has obviously conducted her business dealings in the typical district 150 way.
Sharon & Tinkerbell – I appreciate your wit. I hope this is just an ISBE snag for Ms. Lathan but my fear is that she will need to complete the Super Cert. program at SIU like Hinton did, because according to the article she never held a similar certificate from another State. The ISBE requirements do not allow for much flexibility.
So it seems our new Super will be right at home among the “truth challenged”.