Disgraced Former CPS CEO Collects Hefty Pensions

Although she is now a felon and will serve time in prison, former Chicago Public Schools Superintendent Barbara Byrd-Bennett will cost school districts she previously worked for more than $140,000 in annual public pensions.

Byrd-Bennett’s career in education spanned more than four decades and included stops at school systems in several large United States cities, including New York, Cleveland, Detroit and Chicago.

Her stints with the school districts in New York and Cleveland make up for the bulk of what the disgraced former official is raking in in retirement, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

In New York, where she worked as a teacher and supervising superintendent from 1970 to 1998, Byrd-Bennett earned a pension of $95,000 a year from the Teachers’ Retirement System of the City of New York. In eight years as head of the Cleveland Public Schools, she has collected $48,928 in pension payments since 2007.

An Ohio statute forbidding those found engaging in corrupt activity of collecting a pension does not apply to Byrd-Bennett, as she is considered an Illinois public official and the statute only covers Ohio.

There have been no suspicions of misconduct against Byrd-Bennett in New York or Cleveland, but the Sun-Times reports she is under investigation for wrongdoing in her role for a $40 million contract when she was with Detroit Public Schools. She is not collecting a pension from her time in Detroit.

Byrd-Bennett’s career in education ended when she resigned from the CPS post on June 1, a little more than a month after an investigation began into her role for a $20.5 million, no-bid contract between the schools and SUPES Academy, her former employer. She resigned in June before pleading guilty to one count of wire fraud in the scheme, which supposedly would have offered her a 10 percent kickback.

She wasn’t vested enough in Chicago to earn a pension here, but took with her contributions she made to a CPS retirement account.

In all, Byrd-Bennett cost CPS at least $893,765 to work here.

“Her contract allowed a $250,000 base salary, a cost-of-living raise, life insurance and a one-time $30,000 moving bonus. She was paid another $152,801.20 for six months of consulting she did before Mayor Rahm Emanuel made her CEO, $7,764 for expenses and $25,201.23 the Board of Education made in pension payments on her behalf,” according to the Sun-Times.

more via the Chicago Sun-Times