Kirk Allen — The president hereby accepts such employee and will devote his attention to the offices of the president. He will not engage in any other activity. Subject to prior approval and where there is no conflict of interest, he may,

I requested such approvals from Brueder. He has never been given approval to sit on any other Board.

In August 20  ____ he joined the Board of USBank. That is a breach of contract. He can be fired for it.  (He raises questions about the presence of USBAnk on campus, given lack of payment of taxes, questions payments to the Foundation.

I aksed for 18 minutes of meeting agendas. I saw records that chair Birt has abolished all committees.

How did you remove Hamilton from the audit committee but when I asked for records of this, you say there are no committees.

Kraft — I’m sure the new pr firm can create all the minutes for you.

Mr. Allen submitted a FoIA request for all the numbers listed on that slide show. They are financial numbers and they have to be released.

Roger Kempa:You folks are something else. Do you go back and see the progression of your decisions.  Trustee Wozniak — wake up.  There was a request for a forensic audit. Brueder said “too expensive and I don’t recommend it.” But now we are talking about a250,000 much more expensive than beofre. You are going to use Crow Horwath — the same firm you have used for the last six years. Are you kidding me?

You know the 2 million dollar deficit for hte Waterleaf? It was budgeted that way. But your surplus in the reserve– that wasn’t budgeted that way. That money should go back to the students.  Chair Birt — what are the specific facts that the public just doesn’t get? What are they? Why does the pr film that you hired indirectly through the attorney — bizarre– Chair Birt — name them — what are the facts that the public doesn’t understnad?  I’m waiting for specifics.

Birt: You’ve been here 7 times.

Kempa: What are the specifics? We’ve had two public watchdog groups — they brought tons of information about misues of finances. So you don’t want to get a forensic audit done on your own, so then the state comes in and wants to conduct an audit , and you don’t even invite the state to comand talk to the public about why. But then you hire this pr film?  Any other BoT member that cares to state the  specifics about why the public doesn’t get, explain it. At a loss of words? If I get on Board, there won’t be a loss of words. I’ll answer any question.  You people have a major problem. The next solution — maybe jail time would work best.

Glenn Hansen, CODFA President:

Richard Jarman: Come April, there will be at least one new face, perhaps three. Who could have forseen the tumult that has engulfed this Board? Is was just last June that the first e-mail was released. Things have continued since. The BoT has not handled it well. It’s had a bunker mentality — we’ve seen inertia, instead of transparency, obfuscation. For years we the faculty have been lonely witnesses, our comments silently drifting into the night air.  Now others have awoken. The BoT has been acting as if these public watchdogs were harming the college.

I was touched by the post by Mr. Allen in favor of teachers — where he thanks us the faculty about our work and contributions.  Not one of these comments has criticized the quality of education here. The problem lies at the top. How many more indignities must we suffer? We must have change in April 2015, not April 2016.

Jean Kartje: Vice President of Academic Affairs. I’ve been here three years. My fifth institution I’ve served, my third community college. It’s hard to hear people who have never spoken with me making accusations about my integrity. This makes it hard for me. If people have issues with me or my colleagues they should come talk with me. As VP I’ve worked at a number of colleges. Any organization this size has flaws. There needs to be a balance in our perspective and we need to focus on education, not finances. We have excellent part-time and full-time faculty dedicated to help students succeed in college and in life. There are other examples that never have a voice at this table. Our culinary team was awarded a silver medal at a competition in Arkansas. We currently have two culinary students studying in France. Our robotics team competed at U of I. This spring our theater companies are performing, we have music ensembles.  Only one other higher education….

(her three minutes are up and Chair Birt asks her to end her comments)

Charles Bernstein: The previous speaker said let us focus on education, not on money and finances.

We certainly cannot be accused of focusing on money and finances…but if we do not focus our efforts on money and finances, we won’t have a college. Here is a small example that is emblematic that is troubling to me. The Waterleaf restaurant — for the first time you presented a line for revenue, expense and loss line in a budget for its three years of existence.

You did not give us the underlying detail. We don’t know how much money was lost without the underlying detail. Here’s the troubling thing: when asked for supporting documentation for the numbers you presented– asked for in a FOIA by a public group — it was denied and said that that information was part of a preliminary draft and therefore not subject to a FOIA request.

If that is the level of accounting going on at the Waterleaf, we are all in trouble. Any business keeps a continuous records of its services and its sales.  If the Waterleaf is not doing that, it should scare the pants off of you. Where else in this college is that kind of accounting going on? That’s why we  need several types of audits — and one of them is a forensic audit.

Hamilton decides not to report.

Birt asks for an ICTTA report — I talked about a white paper that had come to us form the Presidents’ council — they wer trying to move forward on that white paper– this is regarding offering Bachelor degree programs in the state. There were presentation on research on applied BA degrees. (She mentions various speakers who presented to them on BA degrees) Most of the Trustees thought is was an insightful program. There were many questions that still remained. So the next day there was a motion that was brought forward and passed, and instead of approving this we instead want to study the issue more. ICTTA is directed to invite all stakeholers to examine the option of all ccs in Illinois to consider offering BA degrees in nursing  and applied manufacturi. We are supposed to make a decision by Nov 1 2015. So we are taking a slower approach to this movement to offering BA degrees,

Trustee Savage: IT was a very informative afternoon. There has been a lot of research done into this. There was also data presented from the Florida and Washington system.  They found that usually older students are the ones who participate in these programs more than younger students.

Trustee McGuire talked about the distinguished alumni awards.

Next meeting April 16, 2015. Adjourned.