School officials may get pay hike

The story below was originally posted in the Peoria Journal Star and also is posted on Students First. The greed of these administrators is amazing the incompetence of of this school board is astounding. The board should be voted out of office for giving these raises. Raises of 27.5% and 28% should never be given out when they have a deficit of 7.9 million dollars. The administrators are already in the top 10% of wage earners nationwide. Some school employees have lost touch with reality and want the common man earns. How people who are in the top 10% of wage earners nationwide think they are underpaid is unfathomable. These salaries are even more excessive when you consider the cost of living in the Peoria area.

School officials may get pay hike
1/6/2006
By Elaine Hopkins

Peoria Journal Star

PEORIA - Retroactive pay raises of about 28 percent are planned for two District 150 associate superintendents, though the School Board still must vote on them.

The raises for Cynthia Fischer and Herschel Hannah Jr. will boost their annual pay to $130,000, effective July 1 of last year.

The raises became known when community activist Mimi McDonald used the Freedom of Information Act to ask about them and received details in a letter dated Dec. 22 from Guy Cahill, the district's controller/treasurer.

Cahill said Fisher now is being paid $111,000. That's a 9 percent increase she already received in the current fiscal year - which started July 1 - over her pay of $101,501 from the previous year. From that rate at the end of the 2004-05 fiscal year, her proposed raise would be a 28 percent increase.

Hannah is making $102,000, the same as last year, with a raise to $130,000 a 27.5 percent increase.

Both entered the District 150 administration in the fall of 2004, when they were earning more than $92,200 as principals.

"The board in consensus agreed on (the proposed new) salaries," Cahill said Thursday. "We made it public when administrative salaries were frozen for people in the same positions, with exceptions for the two associates because they changed positions."

Both had been serving as interim superintendents until last summer. Fischer's increase to $111,000 was "an adjustment, not a raise," Cahill added.

Asked why the proposed raises have not been voted on, Cahill said they "fell through the cracks" when the position of human resources director was vacant.

Superintendent Ken Hinton has a contract and is being paid $185,000 plus an allowance for expenses, Cahill said. Last year, Hinton made $165,303, when he had a temporary contract,

Board president Alicia Butler said Thursday she did not recall any public discussion of the amount of the proposed raises, which must be voted on in open session. "It's not on the agenda for Monday," she added.

Butler said the amounts concerned her, since they would pay for another teacher or security guard. "We certainly have to scrutinize every dollar and that includes salaries," she said.

District 150 expects a deficit of $7.9 million this year and has approved tax levies that will increase taxes by $61 on a $100,000 residence.

Raises for unions in District 150 this year range from 1.9 percent for custodians to 3.7 percent for teachers.

Lisa Uphoff, field representative for the Peoria Federation of Support Staff, Paraprofessional Unit, Local 6099, said the administrative raises were discussed at a meeting of the union coalition Wednesday night.

"It was a surprise to everyone there. We were under the assumption that all administrative salaries were frozen," she said.

Hinton could not be reached for comment.