Dupage Policy Journal

The Community Unit School District 200 school board has been put on notice regarding overgenerous administrator salary and benefits packages.

Jeanne Ives, a Republican state representative from 2015-2018 who runs Breakthrough Ideas, laid out on her Facebook page the benefits package the Community Unit School District 200 gave to Superintendent Jeff Schuler in its Dec. 9 meeting.

Among the items in Schuler’s contract Ives pointed out is an annual base pay of $269,620.80 with a 3% increase each year over the five-year life of the contract. In addition, Schuler’s healthcare insurance premiums will be paid until 2032.

Ives noted in the post that the school district is still paying the healthcare premiums for a superintendent who left the district 15 years ago.

“We are still paying the health insurance for former superintendent Gary Catalani who left the district in 2007. That board negotiated that D200 taxpayers would pay his health insurance through 2022,” Ives wrote.

Shuler will also get his retirement dues entirely paid for by taxpayers, a "perk" costing taxpayers almost $25,000, according to Ives. "Usually, TRS pensioners are required to pay 9% towards their own pension."

Ives saved her biggest complaint for the length of Shuler's contract.

“[T]he biggest problem with the contract is that the contract is for FIVE years,” she wrote. “This board is encumbering future school boards and tying their hands for the next five years. No One in the private sector sees contracts like this.”  

Ives stated in the post that during her time in the state legislature, she sponsored bills to limit long-term contracts like the one given to Schuler, among other expenditure concerns related to educator-compensation packages. "And In Illinois, such contracts are illegal in higher education. I know because I passed a bill to limit contracts to no more than four years," she wrote. However, her legislation was limited to higher education, not K-12.  

Ives claimed in the post that Schuler’s benefit-laden contract is an example of local elected officials being reckless with taxpayer funds.

“There is NO WAY any of you running your own business would write a contract like this," Ives posted. "But, because it is someone else’s money, it appears you just don’t care.” 

Ives has tussled with Schuler, who became CUSD200 superintendent in 2014, in the past. In Sept. 2020 she accused of him of backing out of an education panel she was hosting due to pressure from ”a mob of angry women," reported the Dupage Policy Journal.