When losing your job isn't really so bad

Daily Herald Editorial Board
Published: 6/15/2008 12:02 AM
:http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=207707

A school leader or village or city manager has lost his or her job.

The public wants to know why.

So the school board, village board or city council calls a special meeting and tells the curious crowd of taxpayers that Mr. Smith or Ms. Smith got fired. Plain and simple. And the reason why? Mismanagement of finances. Or a severe personality clash with the board and other employees. A conflict of interest in performance of duties. Failure to implement agreed-upon initiatives. Complaints of harassment.

And not only does the public get these explanations, but they are also told:

"They're out of a job. They're not hanging around on an interim basis. And no over-generous severance package. Two weeks' pay, whatever's left in vacation, is what they leave with and all they deserve. No lucrative taxpayer-funded deals for not doing your job. And we take some blame for this, too."

End of fairy tale.

Because that's not how it usually is when top-tier public officials are suddenly out of a job. There are usually no explanations why. And they aren't really fired, not when they are given some interim post or other position. They don't even suffer financial consequences, not when they fall gently onto their next spot in life under a golden parachute.

But the bill for the extravagant severance packages or the interims lands hard on taxpayers.
The latest example of this is what has happened at the College of DuPage.

The COD board removed former President Sunil Chand from his job. But not really. He was reassigned to the position of "president emeritus" presumably to focus on fundraising.
Meanwhile, the board brought back former President Harold McAninch to serve as "interim" president.

The cost for having a emeritus president and an interim president? Close to $400,000.
And the number of clear explanations the public has received from the college, as to exactly why Chand is not the for-real president anymore, and just why it needs two presidents, since this all went down on May 27?

Zero.

Now we can understand that the board may have its hands tied in discussing what happened without crossing the line into invasion of privacy. But then again, it be could acting on the overcautious or arrogant advice of lawyers. In any event, can't there even be a tidbit of clarification, such as "not performing up to expectations" or "not meeting objectives set forth in the last performance review" or "concern about quality of management" if indeed any of these were the case? Just something.

When most of us get fired, for cause, we get what little is coming to us financially and are shown the door the same day of dismissal. Not so for public officials.

Taxpayers did get one explanation, from COD Board Chairman Micheal McKinnon:

"Keep in mind all actions are done with the best interest of the taxpayers in mind."

If you were crying at having to pay out $400,000, that ought to get you laughing again.