Every once in a while, I’m reminded of the fact that we live in a pretty wonderful community. About a week or so ago, I heard about proposed layoffs at Washtenaw Community College, and I posted something here on the site about what was happening. As I said at the time, I don’t have a lot of background when it comes to IT outsourcing, but something just didn’t seem right about how this was being presented by the college, and I called for college administrators to slow the process. Well, apparently a reader of this site, upon reading that post, and learning that 30-some local folks could lose their jobs, decided to devote a significant amount of her time, and try to really understand what was going on. What follows is the result of her work. And, like I said earlier, I think it’s testament to the fact that we live in a pretty wonderful community — one in which people actually stand up for their neighbors, and fight to keep them here in our community.

The IT Outsourcing at WCC is a Scam. As a Taxpayer, You Should Fight It. Here’s Why and How.

Washtenaw Community College (WCC) is presently considering a contract to outsource all of their IT work to Ellucian, which is a for-profit company based in Reston, Virginia.

This is a bad deal for taxpayers, it puts 31 local community members out of a job, and, if approved, it puts WCC in a position of long-term financial peril.

Admittedly, there is a lot of information to parse about this issue, much of it complicated. However, I’ve tried to boil it down here into its most critical parts, while also pointing out the misinformation and suppression in which WCC President Rose Bellanca has engaged. There’s a call to action at the end of this story to contact WCC trustees, but not through the contact form on the college’s website (more about that in a moment).

OK, so let’s start at the beginning. Why is IT being outsourced at WCC in the first place?

Bellanca says this deal is needed because, two years ago, WCC experienced a three-day intermittent outage, where a misconfigured network device helped set off a chain reaction campus-wide. That sounds bad, yes, and it was certainly inconvenient. But campus IT networking staff diagnosed and fixed the issue, and there was no data loss, security breach, or other major losses during the outage.

Still—outages are super bad, and so Ellucian could ensure they never happen, right?

Not so much. Muskegon Community College uses Ellucian and experienced a week-long shutdown according to this MLive article, and Ellucian also accidentally shared personal data from students and staff with three other colleges, according to data on privacyrights.org.

Even though Ellucian can’t prevent outages or data loss, WCC still says there’s money to be saved in this deal. Is that true?

Nope—in fact, just the opposite. Bellanca went on the record saying that $600k could be saved by outsourcing IT to Ellucian. This is a sneaky bait-and-switch since, while IT services will remain fixed in price, the College will pay dearly for Ellucian software licensing.

The software in question is called Banner, and it maintains student, alumni, financial, and personnel data. Schools including Purdue and McHenry College have used Ellucian’s Banner software, and have experienced significant increases in costs each year—not to mention paying consulting fees for the recommended services. A detailed account of the hidden costs associated with Ellucian can be found in this open letter that was sent to the WCC trustees, which includes an on-the-record interview from Texarkana President James Henry Russell, who says that using Ellucian cost the college millions, and that its continually increasing fees put the college in financial peril.

WCC claims that IT costs have increased by 25% in the past four years, but it stands to reason that these numbers should be compared to how much Ellucian will cost the college in projected fees, when other more cost-effective alternatives are available.

WCC could actually give the boot to Ellucian and Banner and save thousands, perhaps even millions. Certainly enough to keep its IT staff around.

If that’s the case, why even consider Ellucian in the first place?

Exactly. It’s nonsensical. It’s also a pattern. Bellanca has contracted with Ellucain in the past, including at Northwood University in West Palm Beach, St Clair Community College, and Macomb County Community College.

How much will the Ellucian contract cost?

Right now, the price is set at $5.2 million. That money will be sent out of state to Ellucian employees in Virginia or India or Latin America or the Middle East as part of their “global team.”

In 2016, Bellanca asked voters for a 10-year, $12.5M millage. It passed, and now a significant portion of that money is leaving the community and 31 people. This is, in short, a bad deal for taxpayers.

Okay but Ellucian could hire back some of the employees who are being laid off, right?

Yes, they are promising to hire back all 31 employees, but no one knows at what salary or what their benefits would be. This is risky AF for WCC employees. If you read the open letter referenced above, Ellucian is in financial peril. Standard & Poor gave the company’s bonds a B-rating, which means investors will very likely lose money on them.

Ellucian isn’t necessarily promising to keep jobs local, either. Since they’re based in Virginia with offices in India and Latin America and the Middle East, they could transfer the 31 WCC employees to any of those locations. Paragraph seven of this Reddit article details all the concerns that accompany working for Ellucian, among them transgender discrimination and alarmingly low morale. (Please also see Parts 3 and 4 of the Reddit article.)

If it’s this bad, and people are speaking out like in the open letter referenced above, then surely the Trustees are being made aware of this, right?

Not necessarily, and in fact Bellanca is suppressing communication or dialogue about this. For example, any emails sent through this contact page for the Trustees page don’t go to the actual trustees. This email directs to three people: Bellanca, her secretary, and the WCC general council whom she hired, Larry Barkhoff. No trustees are guaranteed to receive these emails.

What’s more, a petition about this was started on change.org, but the site was blocked from being accessed on on-campus computers. And yes, you read that right: A taxpayer-funded, higher-education institution blocked content for its faculty and students.

Holy shit, this all sounds terrible. What can I do?

We have until June 25th until the trustees vote, so time is short. Here’s what will help.

First, sign this petition on Change.org.

Then, use the list below to email the WCC trustees individually. Cite this open letter, and challenge the long-term fiscal health of this plan. Ask them to vote NO on the Ellucian contract.

Ms. Christina M. H. Fleming, Board Chair: fleming4trustee@gmail.com or TechieGirl97@gmail.com

Mr. Bill Milliken Jr, Vice Chair: votemilliken@comcast.net or info@millikenrealty.com

Ms. Angela Davis, Treasurer: adavis1543@yahoo.com

Mr. Dave DeVarti, Secretary: daviddevarti@comcast.net

Ms. Diana McKnight-Morton, Trustee: dmort4298@comcast.net

Ms. Ruth A. Hatcher, Trustee: rhatcher@wccnet.edu

Dr. Richard J. Landau, Trustee: rjlandau@rjlps.com

Finally, share and forward this blog post to anyone who needs to see it or who may be able to help get the word out.