Batavia schools exec giving up stipend to help district

The Batavia school district's treasurer has volunteered to give up his $2,000 monthly stipend.

Anton Inglese, who was appointed treasurer in May 2009, has asked the school board to review the $96,000 yearly salary for his main job as the district's chief information officer.

Inglese will give up the stipend April 1. As CIO, he is in the first year of a three-year contract, which contains no guaranteed raises, he said.

In a letter to the school board, Inglese wrote that the stipend "has become an obstacle to problem solving the current financial crisis, given the political environment that currently exists in the district." The district is in the midst of making its 2010-11 budget, and is trying to stave off a large deficit in its operating funds budgets.

The board was legally prohibited, by the Illinois School Code, from reducing the stipend in the middle of his two-year term.

"In what I believe may be in the best interest of the district and its stakeholders, I will voluntarily forgo compensation for my services to you as treasurer," Inglese wrote.

The board accepted his offer Tuesday. It also agreed to take another look at his compensation as CIO. Superintendent Jack Barshinger said it will likely be reviewed when all administrators' salaries are reviewed later this spring. He said it is up to the school board to decide whether to change Inglese's salary.

This week, the school board accepted the teachers' offer to give up part of a salary increase and to adjust health insurance benefits. The concessions will save up to 60 jobs and $2.3 million.

"If the teachers were going to do it (forgo part of their raise), I felt I should do it," Inglese said Wednesday.

Inglese was the subject of some public criticism last year when the board accepted his bid to buy a house built by the Building Trades class at Batavia High School. It cost the district more than $400,000 to build the house; the highest bidder offered $325,000, but was rejected when he could not arrange financing. Inglese was the second-highest bidder, at $259,000.

In his memo to the board, Inglese wrote that should the board adjust his salary, "I know it would be done in a fair, upfront and transparent fashion - in the spirit and tradition of this board - so as to assuage any political concerns surrounding my compensation and, perhaps, my standing."