Editorial: The next step in local control of salaries

Editor's Note: An earlier version of this editorial identified a $400,000 bonus that was to be paid to outgoing University of Illinois Chancellor Phyllis Wise but failed to acknowledge that the university rescinded the bonus. This version of the editorial has been edited to reflect the later action.

Bowing more to the passion of the public spotlight than to reason or the practical interests of local government control, the legislature has passed and the governor signed College of DuPage-inspired legislation that restricts what community college boards can offer prospective administrators.

OK, so be it. It ignores the fact - emphasized by the recent troubles at the University of Illinois - that community colleges are not the sole public institutions where executive perks are an issue. And, as representatives of many other responsible community colleges pleaded futilely, it limits the options to boards looking for ways to attract and retain the best leadership they can afford. Now, instead of letting voters decide - as they decided at COD by ousting three trustees - whether elected community college board members are paying administrators too much, the law creates specific rules about what boards can and cannot pay.

But what's done is done. The important thing now is to heed the direction suggested by Villa Park Democratic state Sen. Tom Cullerton: "There still need to be additional protections in place to shed some sunshine on the use of state funds at public higher education institutions."

It's not entirely accurate that lack of sunshine was a key factor at the root of COD's $763,000 parting deal with former President Dr. Robert Breuder or of U of I's problems with former Chancellor Phyllis Wise - who, it bears noting, resigned under fire from her $550,000-a-year administrative job and was to receive a $400,000 parting gift until the university voted to rescind it. But the size of all the dollar signs involved in such cases certainly is.

And, if the heft of those numbers at College of DuPage or Elgin Community College or Harper College is what got the attention of state leaders, surely similar arrangements at U of I, Northern Illinois, Eastern, Western and every other state educational institution also deserve legislative scrutiny. And, if there, then why not also the village of Schaumburg? The city of Naperville? Palatine Elementary School District 15, Algonquin-based Community Unit District 300 or any other taxpayer-supported institution competing for administrative talent?

With this law, fashioned to make it look like lawmakers, who couldn't manage their own affairs in Springfield, are fighting for responsible government spending, the legislature has opened a Pandora's box of meddling in local affairs. If it really considers the issue so important that negotiating options should be taken out of the hands of community college boards, the state is right to turn quickly, as lawmakers indeed have begun to do, to the institutions where the potential for abuse is much greater - four-year universities.

Meanwhile, local boards and councils best prepare, too. Perhaps in the short term, voters, understandably outraged by the mystifying size of golden parachutes handed out to both private and public executives, will applaud the state's imposition. But they ought also take some time to contemplate the broader, more sinister implications of such meddling in affairs that really ought to be in their own local purview.