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 The Northern Illinois University
Board of Trustees unanimously voted to approve a $600,000 severance package Dec.
7 for former University President Doug Baker, who resigned amid a patronage
scandal.
Baker resigned from his post in June following the public release of an
investigation showing improper hiring practices. The report revealed NIU paid a
combined $1 million to at least five people the university hired as though they
were part-time instructors to avoid competitive bidding requirements.
Investigators said that under Baker’s watch, the university “committed a pattern
of circumventing procurement requirements and violating employment policies and
rules.” This was in “an effort to meet President Baker’s directives to select
high-paid consultants (one of whom was a friend), and pay for travel and
lodging, without restrictions.”
 The NIU Board of Trustees first received the report in August 2016, roughly 10
months before the report became public and Baker resigned. The revote to approve
the contract came after a DeKalb County judge ruled the package null and void
Nov. 22 because the board had originally violated the Open Meetings Act, failing
to disclose a meeting agenda for the closed meeting at which the board granted
Baker his severance.
According to the Board of Trustees’ agenda for its meeting Dec. 7, Baker’s deal
– which totals just over $600,000 – includes paying him his base salary of
$450,000, a one-time lump sum of $137,500 and $30,000 for Baker’s “reasonable,
unpaid expenses for legal counsel in relation to his service to the University.”
State Sen. Tom Cullerton, D-Villa Park, who sits on the Illinois Senate’s higher
education committee, slammed the board’s decision.
“Failed administrators and executives shouldn’t receive golden parachutes for
wasting taxpayers’ time and money,” Cullerton said in a press release. “Our
state universities and community colleges need to stop abusing state funds.
These dollars should go toward educating our children, not lining the pockets of
ineffective administrators.”
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But unfortunately for
taxpayers, expensive “golden parachutes” at Illinois public
universities are nothing new.
In 2015, the College of
DuPage Board of Trustees approved a $763,000 severance package for
President Robert Breuder. During Breuder’s tenure at the College of
DuPage, the college hid more than $95 million in spending –
including hundreds of thousands of dollars paid to businesses
connected to college leadership, his membership in a private
shooting club and nearly a quarter of a million dollars in alcohol
listed on ledger lines as “instructional supplies.”
The Chicago Tribune called the $763,000 payout “one of the largest
severance packages for a public employee in state history.”
In 2016, too, Chicago State University paid university President
Thomas Calhoun Jr. $600,000 in severance despite Calhoun’s serving
just nine months of a five-year contract.
The recklessness in giving out golden parachutes is a symptom of the
waste in Illinois higher education. The administrative bloat – and
high costs it carries – diverts money needed for students toward
administrators, all on the backs of taxpayers. In 2015, more than
half of the state’s $4.1 billion spent on public universities went
to retirement costs alone, and more than half of Illinois’ 2,465
university administrators working that year received a base salary
of $100,000 or more.
Given all the waste already prevalent in higher education – and the
misguided prioritization of administrators over students – the NIU
Board of Trustees should have denied the $600,000 severance package
to a president marred by scandal. Instead, the board turned its back
on taxpayers and students.
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