College board of trustees violated open meetings law, according to closed meeting audio obtained by radio station - Entrepreneur Generations

Members of the the Western Illinois University Board of Trustees repeatedly violated the Illinois Open Meetings Act, according to a recording of a closed door meeting obtained by Tri States Public Radio in Illinois, Iowa and Missouri. TSPR's work is an excellent example of investigative reporting: it's likely many public agencies violate closed door meeting laws, but it's hard to catch them because only a few states require a verbatim record of closed meetings.

Cathy Early, then the board chairperson, said during the June 28 closed meeting that the open door meeting would be scripted. That's illegal: the Illinois OMA says that the public's business must be discussed in public. "In the recording, it sounds as though this is business as usual for closed door sessions as board members and administrators talk about issues that are supposed to be discussed in public," Rich Egger reports. Egger also notes that it sounds as though the board is making plans to violate the law again in future sessions.

The Illinois Attorney General ordered the audio to be released after receiving a complaint from a faculty representative at Western Illinois. TSPR reviewed the audio in an effort to find out why the university completely cut appropriated funding to the radio station. "They make it sound like a done deal, though TSPR was not officially notified of the funding cut until mid-August," Egger reports. And though TSPR requested documentation about the decision in a Freedom of Information Act request, the university still hasn't provided much.

"We were sent hundreds of emails that shed a bit of light on the issue but there are no budget spreadsheets, no meeting minutes, no metrics, or any other data demonstrating who made the decision, when it was made, or why TSPR was cut instead of other university offerings," Egger reports. "TSPR was even told that the public radio station was not mentioned in any closed session meeting of the BoT – a conclusion you might come to if you simply looked at the paragraph-long meeting minutes from the June 28 closed session. But in reality, TSPR was brought up multiple times in that morning’s closed meeting."

The closed meeting's stated purpose was to discuss personnel, collective bargaining, litigation and real estate, all of which are valid topics under the OMA. The board went into open session immediately afterwards and authorized more than two dozen layoffs, then went back into closed session to discuss specific employees' performance. "But in this 51 minute recording, the board talks again and again about groups of workers, the school’s budget, programs, and other matters that are supposed to be discussed in public," Egger reports.

from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/2DCg2fK College board of trustees violated open meetings law, according to closed meeting audio obtained by radio station - Entrepreneur Generations

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