LW 210 Dinged for Excessive Raises to Staff, Administrators

Lincoln-Way District 210 administrators were overly generous with their raises, resulting in nearly $200,000 in penalties paid to the state, Chicago Tribune reports.

The district was required to pony up $199,113 in excess salary penalties to the teachers’ retirement system of Illinois for bestowing raises that exceeded a state cap—a practice current Superintendent Scott Tingley called “part of the collective bargaining agreement” under former leader Lawrence Wyllie.

“I don’t want to make excuses, but there were reasons for each one. It was part of the collective bargaining agreement. ... It’s not like we were giving out random raises.”

—Dr. Scott Tingley, as told to the Chicago Tribune

The news only adds to the ire of Lincoln-Way District 210 residents enraged over the decision to close Lincoln-Way North, which parents have called rash, unnecessary, and destructive to the community. A group of parents representing as Lincoln-Way Taxpayers Unite last month filed a lawsuit against the district to try to stop the closing.

“We believe the decision of the District 210 Board of Education to close an eight-year-old, state-of-the-art high school was not only unlawful, but an arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable decision aimed at preventing the Illinois State Board of Education and community members from learning about the malfeasance of the Board for the past 15 years,” said Todd Velky, a member of Lincoln-Way Area Taxpayers Unite, in a statement released earlier this month.

The group is seeking a preliminary injunction to prevent the school’s closing, and ultimately wants to see a court rule in its favor and overturn the school board’s decision.

A 2005 law put a 6 percent cap on raises to teachers, administrators and educators near retirement, in turn requiring that districts exceeding that cap chip in to the pension fund to alleviate added strain on the system.

District 210’s penalties stem from raises granted to 27 different people in the last 10 years, the Tribune reports. At the low end, penalties came in at $111; the high end, $75,225.

In its 200-page lawsuit, LWATU decried the district’s penalties as just one of many examples of questionable, irresponsible, even sneaky, financial decisions.

“Our group of volunteers has uncovered consistent deficit spending because of unprecedented practices including raiding of the Student Activity Fund, and financial support of pet projects completely unrelated to the education of our students,” Velky said. “We have spent months analyzing the financial records of District 210, and information gathered from mountains of requests under the Freedom of Information Act. This is the work the Board should have been doing all along.”

Read On:

• ‘I‘m Pissed ... This is B.S.’ Lincoln-Way Parents Explain Lawsuit
• Lincoln-Way Parents Sue to Stop LW North High from Closing
• L-W 210 Board Selects New Auditors