Former SCFFAC Member Calls Out District 112 Board

A former member of the North Shore District 112’s Superintendent’s Citizen Finance and Facilities Advisory Committee (SCFFAC) and finance subcommittee member addressed the district’s board of education at its January 15 meeting with some harsh words on the district’s dissemination of information, notably when it came to the $150 million referendum that had been considered but taken off the table days before a board vote was scheduled.

While applauding the “responsible” decision to put off the referendum - which would have condensed the number of schools in the district to seven and created a “Middle School Campus” that would have have been the location for all the district’s fifth thru eighth graders - Robert Bernat called the board to account with a number of statements.

“The SCFFAC didn’t do what it needed to,” he said. “The core flaw was that it closed off analysis of matters which truly dominate the budgetary issues that in large part created this crisis. A change in the existing neighborhood school model will act to make drastic changes to this entire community, all the effects of which I promise you are not predictable from where we sit today.”

Talk of the referendum “has fractured our community,” he said. “The process to date has caused many of our residents to distrust the information being disseminated by the District calling it nothing more than a sales job.”

Bernat calls for “a comprehensive review of all of the District’s finances.”

“In order to fulfill our responsibilities we must engage an independent auditor that can have no allegiances in the District along with a small committee comprised of pro-referendum residents, residents against the referendum, administrators, and teachers,” he said.

“If you as the Board do not undertake this comprehensive audit of all District expenditures, you will have failed in your responsibilities.”

View the transcript of Bernat’s speech here