The Board of Trustees were met by union members of Eastern’s chapter of University Professionals of Illinois, EIU-UPI, with flyers of information regarding Eastern administration’s contract negotiation proposals compared to inflation rates at the trustee meeting on Friday.

This follows EIU-UPI requesting a federal mediator due to coming to a standstill in bargaining sessions. 

The flyers listed the consumer price index, CPI, and the pay raise received from 2017 to 2021. 

The CPI is a price index with a weighted average market basket of consumer goods and services purchased by households.

• 2017: CPI 2.1%, no pay raise
• 2018: 2.4%, 1.5% raise
• 2019: 1.8%, 1.5% raise
• 2020: 1.2%, 1.75% raise
• 2021: 4.7%, 2.25% raise

The trustees unanimously approved the final fiscal year 2023 budget and FY24 capital budget summary which included 13 projects equaling $283,679,400.

Paul McCann, Eastern’s treasurer, explained the revisions to the budget.

“The highlights of that are we received a little bit more in the way of tuition and as the appropriation than what was provided before in the preliminary budget that you approved in June,” McCann said. “And we made an adjustment of the 24 projected budget to increase the request from Springfield from five to eight percent. As mentioned [by trustee Chair Joyce Madigan], there were a couple of adjustments within the capital budget where we changed the valuation based upon the cost of living to more appropriately reflect what the Capital development board asks.”

Of the FY24 capital budget summary projects, three are regular capital projects costing the most of the project total budget: the new science building project costing $96.6M, upgrading utility infrastructure project costing $53,949 and the repurpose steam production facilities project to remodel and rehabilitate costing $85,805,900. This accounts for $236,355,300 of the total amount.

The remaining 10 projects total to the remaining $47,324,100:

• $96.6M for the new science building project – escalation only
• $85,805,900 for the repurpose steam production facilities project to remodel and rehabilitate
• $53,949,400 for the upgrade utilities infrastructure project for safety and utilities
• $8,804,000 for the rehabilitate Klehm Hall HVAC and plumbing project
• $8,383,500 for the upgrade electrical building distribution project
• $6,677,800 for the fire alarm upgrades project in Buzzard and Coleman Hall
• $6,522,300 for the rehabilitate Life Science and Coleman Hall HVAC and plumbing project
• $5,200,400 for the rehabilitate windows in McAfee project
• $3,936,100 for the upgrade electrical system in the Physical Science Building project
• $2,461,100 for the replace campus compressed air distribution piping project
• $2,211,500 for the rehabilitate windows for Booth Library project
• $1,994,000 for the fire alarm upgrades in Old Main, Klehm Hall and Student Services project
• $1,133,400 for the emergency power system in the Physical Science Building project

The trustees approved a purchase not to exceed $836,627 for new student laptops through Dell Marketing LP in Round Rock, Texas.

The trustees received a report for all purchases costing from $100K to $249,999. The purchases within this amount included two bids for laptop computer purchases.

The first is a $200,705 purchase with the company Illinois Office of the Auditor General for 2022 audit expenses.

The second is a $152,077.86 purchase with CDW Government, Inc. for a beyond trust software.

Madelyn Kidd can be reached at 581-2812 or at dennewsdesk@gmail.com.