College of DuPage – $388,834.98 – Money well spent!

DuPage Co. (ECWd) –

Reform is never easy nor as costly as some wanted to make people believe. The College of DuPage has been the centerpiece in the news cycles of the Chicago Suburbs for almost two years.  Finally, the released Performance Audit has validated many of the concerns raised by us and others and the behind the scenes documents are proving to be most interesting.

Of particular interest is the tally of time and cost associated with conducting the audit, which in April of 2015 the Reform Board approved the Performance Audit to be conducted.  During that meeting, Trustee Birt opined that she was told the cost could hit $850,000.00.   Trustee McGuire expressed concern of it hitting $400,000.00.

Trustee Burnstien’s comments during that meeting were almost spot on with his assessment that the expanded scope of the audit would not double the cited cost of $235,000.00.  I suggested the adding of two more years to the scope may increase that 50%. He only missed his mark by $36,000.  A clear indicator of his wisdom and business acumen on such matters, a value needed to reform this institution.

Turns out, as if anyone is surprised, Birt and McGuire were both wrong. The actual cost was $388,834.98 consisting of 6,535.3 hrs of work.  (See page 5 of 6 for the totals)

As the Reform board continues to make great strides towards reform and work towards being removed from the Probation status by the Higher Learning Commission, the legacy board continues to ignore facts laid out in the audit report.

Although there are still many issues to be resolved, such as issues with the Suburban Law Enforcement Academy and the State Law Enforcement Training Standards Board failure to ever approving a SLEA Director, progress is being made.

Stay tuned for a rolling production of articles on COD and the Reform efforts.

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