Morris' highest paid college student?

As reported by the Morris Daily Herald, Teri Shaw has resigned from the District 54 school board, and has been hired on as a "district administrator" at a salary of $65,000. The following year, the job title will morph into "superintendent" with a salary boost to $90,000. The third year, the salary jumps to $135,000. On top of this, the district has agreed to pay for Teri to finish her MBA and obtain her superintendent credentials at an estimated cost of $22,000. Presumably, she will also receive insurance and retirement benefits.

A remarkable perk is that Terri is apparently not required to actually be present during the day to perform her job duties. (How could she with so many classes to attend?). As reported by the MDH,

Current District 54 Interim Superintendent Dr. Dennis Broniecki said he will continue to serve in his part-time position for the one year remaining on his contract, during which time he will mentor Shaw and continue to serve the district during the day.

Shaw's hours will be more flexible, he said, as she works to get her degree and certification. Her new position as district administrator will be full-time, but will be performance-based, rather than having set hours.

This is quite a generous arrangement for someone who has never held a job in school administration, and has no credentials for the job.

On the other hand, maybe a more business-like approach is just what the doctor ordered. Indeed, it appears that there have been substantial cost savings achieved under Shaw's leadership. It is, at the very least, refreshing that any elected official is conscious of the concept of fiscal responsibility, even when that means eliminating some desired services. Perhaps the board's action will be viewed as a shrewd move toward a more fiscally accountable school district.

I suspect however, that the public will view this decision as self-serving for Shaw, and very irresponsible by the board.

The cookie jar has again proven to be just too tempting.


MDH article

Reversal of fortune?

A couple of interesting items from the recent city council meeting. As reported by the Morris Daily Herald,

"...the council approved paying ‘D' Construction $5,000 for additional work at the entrance to the former SenreQ property at the south end of Ashley Road."

Does this mean that Senreq has formally closed up shop? Is their lease still in effect?

Additionally, the city council did not approve the mayor's highly suspect proposal to award a $400,000 no-bid contract to Spiess Construction to install 1/2 mile of sanitary sewer along Illinois 47, from Saratoga School to the north end of the ProLogis property.

The rationale advanced by the mayor and Scott Belt was that Prologis Drive was being upgraded and would then become a city street, and if the sewer line was not extended in time, the city would have to bore under ProLogis Drive at an increased cost.

Just wondering... why can't the city install the sewer pipe across Prologis Drive now, for a distance of 60 feet or so, and connect it later after bids are received?

City of Morris exposed to civil liability?

Morris is not the first city to make creative use of sales tax rebate agreements.

The village of Lisle entered into a questionable sales tax rebate agreement and soon found itself named as a defendant in a lawsuit brought by the other municipality.

After years of litigation, a cash settlement was reached, as reported in this recent Chicago Tribune article.

Read the complete appellate court ruling in Village of Itasca vs. Village of Lisle.

Minority Development?

According the City of Morris Treasurer's Report, one of the city's largest vendors is a company called Minority Development Co. Last fiscal year, the city paid Minority Development $639,604.

With the name Minority Development, someone skimming the Treasurer's Report might assume that this is a minority-owned construction company hired for a large public works project. That is not the case.

Actually, this company occupies a sparsely furnished one-room office in the Franklin Building, where it does "paperwork" for a large suburban car dealership.

What is really going on here?

It appears that the arrangement goes something like this:

The car dealership claims that millions of dollars of vehicles are sold in the tiny office in Morris. Using a sales tax rebate agreement, the city then rebates a large portion of the city's sales tax revenue back to the dealership, keeping a small percentage for the city. Minority Development acts as the conduit. No cars, customers or salesmen are physically present in Morris.

The dealership manages to avoid paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales tax. The suburban village where the car dealership is actually located is similarly deprived of hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales tax revenue. All courtesy of the City of Morris.


Municipality sued over sales tax rebate agreement


Village of Itasca vs. Village of Lisle

City engineer cashes in

"City officials in Wilmington have grumbled for years about how much the city pays each year for professional services, but this year's payments to the city engineers has led to discussions about creating an in-house engineering position." This according to a recent article in the Free Press newspapers.

It seems the City of Wilmington paid engineers over $221,000 last year. The city council is so upset by the expense that it is considering moving engineering services in-house.

Morris should be so lucky.

According to the City of Morris Treasurer's Report published in the Morris Daily Herald, the city of Morris paid Chamlin & Associates engineers a whopping $826,972 last fiscal year.

Payments to Chamlin ballooned 39% percent over the previous year, when the city of Morris paid Chamlin $593,346.

To put this in perspective, if we allow for weekends and holidays, the city of Morris paid Chamlin $3,269 per day, for each and every working day of the year.