Neale's moving expenses in her contract
Elgin Area School District U-46 taxpayers shelled out $13,067.17 to move Superintendent Connie Neale to Missouri in July.
They spent an extra $400 to reset and relocate her grandfather and cuckoo clocks.
Some school board members have questioned the expenses, saying nobody called their attention to the line item.
The $13,468 payment to Adco and Van Storage was a single entry among pages of itemized bills that the board voted on but did not review at the July 23 board meeting.
"It was my responsibility and I'm sorry I missed it," board member Amy Kerber said Tuesday.
Neale's original contract, inked in August 2002, called for the board to pay her moving expenses from Texas and travel expenses to and from her Texas home until Jan. 31, 2003.
It also required her to live within district boundaries for the duration of the contract.
A July 2004 amendment called for the district to pay Neale's moving expenses upon her retirement but still stipulated that Neale was to maintain residency in the district.
Neale's 2005 contract changed her residency requirements, allowing her to move outside the district after the 2007-08 school year.
In May 2006, the school board again amended Neale's contract. The updates required only that Neale maintain residency in the district until two years prior to her retirement.
Also in 2006, Neale purchased the home in Joplin, Mo., where she now resides.
On Monday, the school board approved a retirement deal that allows Neale to stay on the U-46 payroll until February.
Neale went on medical leave for an undisclosed condition in September.
On Tuesday, School Board President Ken Kaczynski said he could not say why the board changed the contract so that Neale could live in another state while running the district.
"I don't recall those discussions, and they all happened in closed session," Kaczynski said. "I don't recall the discussion that centered around the rationale."
Residents and teachers have questioned the timeline of Neale's medical leave.
Neale put her Elgin house on the market in May. At the time she said she was simply downsizing and planned on buying a condo in the area. The board approved her moving expenses to Missouri two months later.
Angry taxpayers also have questioned how long Neale -- who received a $60,000 raise and bonus in January, and added lifetime health and disability benefits to her contract in 2004 -- had been planning her retirement.
In January, school board member Dan Rich resigned, saying he felt Neale had "held the board hostage" when she asked for the raise and bonus that brought her total pay package to more than $400,000 a year.
In a January interview, Neale said, "It's not true that I had any consideration of leaving whatsoever."
A Daily Herald analysis showed Neale will collect more than $1 million in post-retirement pay-outs from U-46 if she lives to be 80. Most of those perks were not included in her original contract.
She also will receive annual pension payments from Illinois, worth nearly $850,000 if she lives to be 80.