COD President Breuder spends lavishly on backs of students

At the November 20th College of DuPage Board meeting, President Robert Breuder defended himself from numerous charges of financial mismanagement by saying he always spends within the annual COD budget. He really got my attention with his boast how he's raised COD's bank balance from $50 million five years ago to $160 million today. On the surface that sounds fine. But consider that year after year he raises COD tuitio...n so his lavish spending can continue while he continues to pile up a savings surplus. Just this year Breuder proposed a substantial $6 per hour tuition increase. The Board blanched just a tad, reducing it to $4 an hour, still a needless financial dagger in largely strapped student pocketbooks. When Breuder's financial shenanigans really heated up several months later, Breuder conveniently tried to pre-empt the gathering spending storm by trumpeting, cue the trumpets, a $2 per hour reduction in student tuition effective in 2015. Not content to simply announce the reduction and move on, Breuder spent the next 15 minutes describing endless financial scenarios which, he claimed, could put COD at great risk by his magnanimous action. But, like Mighty Mouse, President Breuder was here to save the day for the COD student body.

As it turned out, the Board, realizing the enormous pressure being focused on them as well as President Breuder, rescinded the entire $4 an hour tuition increase. But, without the long overdue scrutiny about massive overspending and lavish goodies for the President and his Board, that tuition decrease wouldn't have been proposed, much less passed.

Critics of President Breuder and his Board are not a right wing conspiracy trying to destroy an educational treasure. They represent the entire political spectrum and simply want to make COD financially and ethically responsible to the students, the faculty and the community.