Holding the bag on Breuder’s contract?

I am an employee of the College of DuPage and I have some concerns about the board’s recent actions. If Chairman David Carlin had wanted to give Dr. Breuder a vote of confidence, he could have done just that. It would have been appropriate for the board to go in turn and publicly praise Dr. Breuder’s accomplishments during his tenure as president of our college.

Instead, Chairman Carlin chose to give Dr. Breuder an extension of his already lucrative contract. Dr. Breuder was already one of the highest paid community college presidents in the state, in large part due to the substantial raise he received after just four months on the job. Dr. Breuder had a good contract before, one that he felt was fair or he would not have accepted its conditions.

By sidestepping the contract and adding a third non-negotiated year to an already lucrative contract, Chairman Carlin has put the taxpayers of District 502 on the hook for over a million extra dollars over the course of this contract. Chairman Carlin references previous boards in the July 17 article, and we all would do well to remember that those boards bought out the contracts of the two previous presidents.

There is no reason to assume that this president will serve out this contract, and the taxpayers will once again be left holding the bag.

Bob Hazard

Aurora

Assistant professor

of English