College of DuPage (ECWd)
In the “COD This Week” publication the College President has been using his time in an attempt to deflect the exposure to his spending of public funds for private purpose as it relates to the satellite phones. He now claims that the purpose was for the school to be able to stay in touch with him. Now I understand why he avoided the military. A leader of an organization should be able to leave on vacation and know all is fine because of the people working for him being able to handle things in their absence. By his own admission that appears not to be the case for Dr. Breuder.
In short, A good leader can take a vacation without worrying about what will happen when he is gone.
For those that don’t know, there is nothing in the Community College Act or any other state statute that authorizes taxpayer money to be spent on satellite phones. Attempting to defuse the satellite phone purchases for his hunt trips with claims he was showing a willingness to work while on vacation is laughable at best.
He claims that the college purchased them for him so that he could stay in touch while on vacation. (Click here and read highlighted section on Page 3)
That is disingenuous at best! The college “paid the expense” but make no mistake, the college did not make the purchase. Dr. Breuder made the purchase and used his college credit card to do so and had the phones delivered to his home in Barrington by Fed-Ex. Doing it this way we suspect he knew the purchase would never be seen by the board as it was hid in the now famous imprest account. I guess he didn’t plan on some of his own people getting a hold of the watchdogs!
If his claim had any validity to it maybe he should provide the call records for those phones, which to date they have refused to provide. Who was being called or calling him will tell the public what they were really used for! To date they have failed to provide a single call record for those phones. When the FOIA was responded to they simply provided the same invoices from before that don’t show the call history.
Note that there are no minutes authorizing this type of purchase and that is confirmed in the records from yet another FOIA request! (Click here for FOIA response with all these records).
2 Comments
Ed Franckowiak
Posted at 13:21h, 31 OctoberIf it were true, that the phones were to be used to contact him 24×7 wherever he was, why would he need 3 (not 1, not 2 but 3) satellite cell phones. How many regular cell phones does he have?
The stories keep changing on the “shooting club” dues, the $50 million dollar building project (with $20 million of that from the state of Illinois) and satellite cell phones. How about fraud at the COD radio station that wasn’t caught by an audit or by the financial controls of the college?
How about fraud at the COD radio station that wasn’t caught by an audit or by the financial controls of the college? We need a board of trustees that will perform their duties and not be a rubber stamp. We need REFORM at COD!
screech0000
Posted at 17:21h, 31 OctoberIts too bad that Dr Breuder was able to dismantle the Courier. Once it was the pride of the school, winning awards for journalism.
Now it is merely a vehicle for Dr Breuder to control the news of his financial hijinks. You’d find more breaking news in Tiger Beat than in the Courier. When Dr. Breuder published his column viciously attacking Trustee Hamilon as a “rogue trustee”, I complained that they should offer Trustee Hamilton a similar platform to defend her position.
There was a day when student newspapers held the administration to account for their actions. That day has long passed at the College of Dupage. The students on the staff are being cheated out of true journalism experience that they would find valuable in a future career.