Funding Golden Parachutes with Taxpayer Money

The Board of Trustees of the College of DuPage is currently receiving extensive publicity in the Chicago area for its recent approval of a "golden parachute" severance package for the outgoing President of the College of DuPage (see here, here, here, and here).  The severance package amounts to a payout for the President of more than $750,000.00.  The Board of Trustees has already been sued for the manner in which this severance package was approved (the lawsuit alleges numerous violations of the Open Meetings Act).  As a result, the Board of Trustees is holding another meeting to re-vote on the severance package.

For those in Minooka 201 who are understandably surprised, incredulous or even outraged by the actions of the Board of Trustees of the College of DuPage, I would remind you that your very own school board voted a hefty raise and severance package for Minooka 201 Superintendent Al Gegenheimer in his last contract (click here for a copy of the contract).

As I detailed in a previous post, the superintendent was given a 30% raise through the four-year term of the contract.  In addition, Superintendent Gegenheimer's contract provides for three annual post-retirement payments equal to 20% of his final annual salary.  Assuming a salary of $172,036 for the last year of the contract, the three annual payments would be $34,407 each.  That is, the taxpayers of Minooka CCSD 201 will be paying the then former superintendent $34,407 each year for three years at the same time he is collecting a pension of up to 75% of the average of his highest four years of salary from the Teachers' Retirement System (approximately $118,480 based on these assumptions).

This "golden parachute" contract also requires Minooka 201 to provide the superintendent with health insurance (hospitalization/major medical) during his retirement until such time as he qualifies for Medicare (typically at 65) or becomes employed by another employer offering health insurance coverage.  This means that if the current superintendent retires at the end of this agreement, the school district would be obligated to provide him health insurance for approximately five years.

Superintendent  Gegenheimer's contract was also approved in a similar manner to that of the College of DuPage President.  Information on the terms of the contract was never disclosed to the public or the entire school board prior to the meeting.  Rather, the contract was presented to the school board for the first time at some time after 10 p.m. on the night of the meeting, after having been negotiated in private by Superintendent Gegenheimer and board members Jim Satorius and Al Skwaczyinski.  To my knowledge, Mr. Satorius and Mr. Skwarczynski were never given such negotiating authority by the board.  The school board then voted (by this time very late in the evening) to approve the contract by a 5-2 vote.  Those voting "yes" were Jim Satorius, Al Skwarczynski, Kevin Hannon, Jeff Budde (no longer on the board), and Dave Carlson (no longer on the board).  Those voting "no" were Kathe Brozman (no longer on the board) and Doug Martin.

If you look around Illinois, I am sure you can find many similar stories of public school boards funding handsome severance packages for their superintendents.  Mind you that these are all in addition to the pension and retiree medical benefits that are also funded by the taxpayers of the State of Illinois, including the local taxpayers.

For the public servants who ask for and receive these "golden parachutes", you have to wonder how much is enough.  And for these public bodies, you also have to wonder why they feel the need to throw ever greater amounts of taxpayer money at these people.  Perhaps it would be beneficial for those that serve on public bodies and were elected by the taxpayers to remember that every dollar that they throw away on these "golden parachutes" first had to be earned by the hard work of a taxpayer.  Every one of these dollars also takes away from monies that could be more wisely spent on classroom teachers and better services directly benefiting our students.