College Of DuPage Trustees Move To Fire President Breuder
CHICAGO (CBS) -- The College of DuPage Board of Trustees voted Thursday night to begin termination proceedings against the college's president, Robert Breuder.
The vote to begin the proceedings was 4-2. Trustees Dianne McGuire and Joseph Wozniak voted against the proposal, which was supported by Board Chairman Katherine Hamilton and the three new trustees elected in March.
Former board chairman Erin Birt was absent.
COD spokesman Randall Samborn said the vote begins a process in which Hamilton provides Breuder with a notice of intent to terminate him for cause. Breuder has administrative due process rights, in which he has the right to hearings that can conclude in an appeal to the full board of trustees.
Actual discharge must be approved by a supermajority of five or more votes, under terms of Breuder's contract with COD.
The board barred Breuder from campus at its April meeting, the first at which Hamilton was chair. Samborn said he remains on administrative and medical leave.
Breuder is accused of authorizing lavish and questionable expenditures and financial mismanagement.
The board, under Birt's leadership, voted in January to authorize a $763,000 contract buyout, to be effective in March 2016. It is said to be one of the largest severance agreements in state history. Hamilton cast the lone vote against it, and since becoming chair in April has been trying to undo it.
