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Palatine Dist. 15 school board inks superintendent's retirement contract

The Palatine Township Elementary District 15 school board inked a new four-year contract with Superintendent Scott Thompson on Wednesday night over the objections of one dissenter who took aim at the structuring of his pay increases.

Thompson, 58, says he will retire once the contract expires, at the end of the 2018-19 school year, although he first considered stepping down sooner, after his previous contract was to run out in 2017.

He will receive $253,558 during the deal's first year, the 2015-16 school year. After that, he gets an annual salary amounting to a 3 percent increase to the previous year's total creditable earnings.

Board member Manjula Sriram, the only board member to vote "no" Wednesday, said she would have opposed 3 percent increases to Thompson's base salary, which she considered too generous compared to what the district pays other employees.

"When you look at all the other groups that we have, we're not giving them those type of increases," she said.

But the 3 percent raises aren't to Thompson's base salary, but to his creditable earnings, which include compensation for up to 10 unused vacation days. Those earnings are reported to the state's Teachers' Retirement System and can be used to calculate pensions.

"We're saying we're giving a 3 percent increase where in fact we're actually giving 5 percent" on his 2015-16 base salary of $241,528, Sriram said. "It's a little misleading to the public. That's where the issue comes."

Board President Peggy Babcock said the contract is designed to avoid state penalties for giving pension sweeteners to retiring educators.

Under a 2005 state law, districts are penalized for awarding raises above 6 percent a year and thereby hiking pension costs. But Gov. Bruce Rauner has proposed handing down penalties for pay increases above the rate of inflation.

While it doesn't specifically make mention of the 6 percent cap, the contract allows the board to adjust Thompson's annual salary "or other creditable earnings to the extent necessary to eliminate" such penalties to the retirement system.

"There are safeguards in the contract that we will never be paying a penalty," Babcock said after Sriram's comments. "We will not be going over 6 percent or we will re-examine. Those caveats are in the contract if that's the ceiling."

She also expressed faith in Thompson's performance.

"I'm very happy that he's going to be our leader for the next four years," she said.

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