Showing posts with label salary information. Show all posts
Showing posts with label salary information. Show all posts
Thursday, July 24, 2014
Minooka 201 Salaries, Benefits and Contracts for 2014-2015
The Minooka CCSD 201 salary, benefit and contract information for 2014-2015
(including collective bargaining agreements) is now available.
Click the following links to be taken to this information: support personnel contract, teacher contract, superintendent contract, and administrative and non-union salaries.
Monday, June 25, 2012
Next Minooka 201 School Board Meeting or Par for the Course Part II
The next meeting of the Minooka CCSD 201 school board is Wednesday, June 27, 2012. The Committee of the Whole Meeting starts at 6:00 p.m. in the board room (the old library) at the Minooka Primary Center located at 305 Church Street in Minooka. The Committee of the Whole Meeting will be followed by a Budget Hearing at 6:45 p.m. in the gymnasium. The Budget Hearing will be followed by the regular Board Meeting at 7 p.m. Each of the meetings are open to the public, and everyone is encouraged to attend. You can find the agenda for each of the meetings here.
You may notice that one of the items on the agenda is the retirement of Assistant Superintendent Stef Palaniuk after the 2015-2016 school year. This may seem like an innocuous agenda item, but instead it will be another instance of padding an administrator's salary for his last years of service and consequently his pension (for a discussion regarding this practice see Par for the Course). The school board is likely to vote to give the Assistant Superintendent a package that is substantially similar to the one recently given to the Superintendent (including four annual raises of six percent per year, severance bonuses for a number of years after retirement, and health care coverage until he is eligible for Medicare). This practice which pads an administrators' pension is one of the reasons that among the Illinois pension reform proposals is a plan to shift the pension costs of local teachers and administrators to the local school district (see here and here).
A reason that is commonly given to support this practice is that this is "the same deal that the teachers receive pursuant to their contract." While this may seem like a fair point, it is not the whole story. The provision of the teachers contract that is being referred to is an early retirement incentive (see page 29 of the teachers contract). This provides an incentive for veteran teachers to retire. When a veteran teacher (often being paid in excess of $70,000 per year) retires at the end of their many years of service, they are typically replaced by a recent college graduate who enters the salary schedule at a much lower rate of pay (close to $40,000 per year). This early retirement incentive was put in place so that the district can SAVE money. But, when an administrator is replaced, the new administrator's salary is typically based upon the previous administrator's last salary.
So, padding the administrators' salaries at the end of their careers is just throwing the taxpayers' money at them with NO SAVINGS and no real advantage for the district. In other words, the district gets nothing of value for this give away. In addition, the reality of the situation is that this practice harms the school district. Many people act as if the amount of money available for public services is infinite, but I assure you that it is not. And whether the additional money for these padded salaries and padded pensions comes out of local district money or state money, the truth is that there is less money to be spent in the classrooms.
Therefore, this practice directly harms education in order to enrich a small group of people. If the local district had to pay the increases to the TRS pension liabilities due to this practice, it is very likely that districts would engage in the practice much less often. So, we can talk all we want about the unsustainable spending practices that occur in Springfield or Washington, D.C., but if we want to find unsustainable spending practices, we need look no further than our own local school district.
You may notice that one of the items on the agenda is the retirement of Assistant Superintendent Stef Palaniuk after the 2015-2016 school year. This may seem like an innocuous agenda item, but instead it will be another instance of padding an administrator's salary for his last years of service and consequently his pension (for a discussion regarding this practice see Par for the Course). The school board is likely to vote to give the Assistant Superintendent a package that is substantially similar to the one recently given to the Superintendent (including four annual raises of six percent per year, severance bonuses for a number of years after retirement, and health care coverage until he is eligible for Medicare). This practice which pads an administrators' pension is one of the reasons that among the Illinois pension reform proposals is a plan to shift the pension costs of local teachers and administrators to the local school district (see here and here).
A reason that is commonly given to support this practice is that this is "the same deal that the teachers receive pursuant to their contract." While this may seem like a fair point, it is not the whole story. The provision of the teachers contract that is being referred to is an early retirement incentive (see page 29 of the teachers contract). This provides an incentive for veteran teachers to retire. When a veteran teacher (often being paid in excess of $70,000 per year) retires at the end of their many years of service, they are typically replaced by a recent college graduate who enters the salary schedule at a much lower rate of pay (close to $40,000 per year). This early retirement incentive was put in place so that the district can SAVE money. But, when an administrator is replaced, the new administrator's salary is typically based upon the previous administrator's last salary.
So, padding the administrators' salaries at the end of their careers is just throwing the taxpayers' money at them with NO SAVINGS and no real advantage for the district. In other words, the district gets nothing of value for this give away. In addition, the reality of the situation is that this practice harms the school district. Many people act as if the amount of money available for public services is infinite, but I assure you that it is not. And whether the additional money for these padded salaries and padded pensions comes out of local district money or state money, the truth is that there is less money to be spent in the classrooms.
Therefore, this practice directly harms education in order to enrich a small group of people. If the local district had to pay the increases to the TRS pension liabilities due to this practice, it is very likely that districts would engage in the practice much less often. So, we can talk all we want about the unsustainable spending practices that occur in Springfield or Washington, D.C., but if we want to find unsustainable spending practices, we need look no further than our own local school district.
Friday, April 27, 2012
Par for the Course
Dramatically increasing a superintendent's salary at the end of his career so as to pad his retirement is nothing new in Illinois. Rather, it is par for the course. Illinois seems to have a tradition of doing just this, among our other illustrious traditions. It is one of the reasons (among other reasons, like the state failing to pay its required contributions in full over the last thirty or so years) that the Teachers' Retirement System (TRS) is in financial trouble. In fact, TRS is projected to become insolvent by 2029 according to Executive Director Dick Ingram (see here). School districts all over Illinois have engaged in this practice of increasing salaries and thereby padding retirement pay (you can read about it here). This may be one of the reasons that Governor Quinn has proposed in his pension reform plan to shift the state's responsibility for TRS contributions to the local school districts (click here for analysis of the pension reform proposals).
You see, this problem of school districts dramatically increasing salaries just prior to retirement in order to pad pensions has been going on for a long time. Because the burden of those increased pensions is borne by the state, the state has tried to rein in the practice. In 2005, they passed a law saying that the local districts could continue to do this but that a district would have to pay a penalty (meant to help the state bear the burden of the increased pension) for any raise greater than 6% per year. Since the passage of that law, it is interesting to note just how many of these end of career raises were exactly 6% per year (the recent proposed contract for the Minooka CCSD 201 superintendent contains annual raises of exactly 6% per year).
Now 6% per year is still a large number (and remember this is just the increase in salary--it does not include the three years of retirement payments or post-retirement health insurance costs) when your economy and, therefore, tax revenues are growing at a much slower rate. It is a very large number when, as is the case in Minooka CCSD 201, the equalized assessed valuation upon which property tax revenue based is dropping (the EAV of the district dropped almost 6% from 2009 to 2010 and nearly 10% from 2010 to 2011). All the talk about our district's budget over the past three years has been about how we are projecting sustained and growing deficits as far as the eye can see (remember deficits, debt and insolvency are not the same thing, but deficits over a sustained period of time certainly create debt and insolvency once your cash balances are depleted). In addition, as we will see in the near future, even these projections do not present an accurate picture since the assumptions of stable or growing EAV upon which they are based are already proving to be seriously flawed. As many of you are aware, over the course of the past few years, our school district has instituted many deficit reduction measures from saving money on our health insurance costs, increasing our student registration fees, and, unfortunately, reducing teaching and support staff positions. And, based on the budget realities going forward, there will be many more such hard decisions to come. But, the taxpayers and parents of Minooka CCSD 201 can rest assured that the district has taken care of its superintendent both now and in retirement (see previous post).
You see, this problem of school districts dramatically increasing salaries just prior to retirement in order to pad pensions has been going on for a long time. Because the burden of those increased pensions is borne by the state, the state has tried to rein in the practice. In 2005, they passed a law saying that the local districts could continue to do this but that a district would have to pay a penalty (meant to help the state bear the burden of the increased pension) for any raise greater than 6% per year. Since the passage of that law, it is interesting to note just how many of these end of career raises were exactly 6% per year (the recent proposed contract for the Minooka CCSD 201 superintendent contains annual raises of exactly 6% per year).
Now 6% per year is still a large number (and remember this is just the increase in salary--it does not include the three years of retirement payments or post-retirement health insurance costs) when your economy and, therefore, tax revenues are growing at a much slower rate. It is a very large number when, as is the case in Minooka CCSD 201, the equalized assessed valuation upon which property tax revenue based is dropping (the EAV of the district dropped almost 6% from 2009 to 2010 and nearly 10% from 2010 to 2011). All the talk about our district's budget over the past three years has been about how we are projecting sustained and growing deficits as far as the eye can see (remember deficits, debt and insolvency are not the same thing, but deficits over a sustained period of time certainly create debt and insolvency once your cash balances are depleted). In addition, as we will see in the near future, even these projections do not present an accurate picture since the assumptions of stable or growing EAV upon which they are based are already proving to be seriously flawed. As many of you are aware, over the course of the past few years, our school district has instituted many deficit reduction measures from saving money on our health insurance costs, increasing our student registration fees, and, unfortunately, reducing teaching and support staff positions. And, based on the budget realities going forward, there will be many more such hard decisions to come. But, the taxpayers and parents of Minooka CCSD 201 can rest assured that the district has taken care of its superintendent both now and in retirement (see previous post).
Friday, February 24, 2012
Minooka 201 Salaries, Benefits and Contracts for 2012
The Minooka CCSD 201 salary, benefit and contract information for 2012 (including collective bargaining agreements) is now available. Click the following links to be taken to this information: support personnel contract, teacher contract, and administrative and non-union salaries.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Minooka 201 Salaries, Benefits and Contracts
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Minooka 201 Salary Information
As an Illinois public school district, Minooka CCSD 201, reports its salary information to the Illinois State Board of Education on an annual basis. The Family Taxpayer Foundation is an organization that provides this information in a easy to search format. Click here to be taken to the page where you can search for salary information. Just enter "Minooka" in the box marked "District" and click the "search" button. Then choose "Minooka CCSD 201" and the salary information will appear. Click here to be taken to the Family Taxpayer Foundation home page. It may also be interesting to search other nearby districts for comparison.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)