Grayslake Elementary District 46 Overpaid Teachers
June 30, 2008 by admin
Filed under CCSD #46, Funding Reform
In more disturbing news from the local school districts, it was discovered that the
Grayslake Elementary District 46 overpaid 13 teachers and classroom assistants a combined $92,106 over the last two academic years
The story was in the Daily Herald. I am glad to see them continuing their reporting on the financial misconduct within the
publicgovernment school system. Now, if they’ll stop recommending support for so many referendums until their is total financial transparency and the end of pay-to-play politics within the system.Ellen Correll, superintendent of District 46, said taxpayers won’t be out the money because nine teachers have either repaid or will return a combined $60,682 they shouldn’t have received.
At least some of the money will be recovered, but some will not.
Three classroom assistants are compensating District 46 by performing extra work under a union settlement agreement struck in May, Correll said.
This money won’t be recovered, it will just be worked off and not repaid.
Correll said complex recalculations of salaries after a new employee contract led to the errors. She said the mistakes weren’t obvious in the checks for most of the 13 workers involved, which made it difficult when she told them the money had to be repaid.
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In addition, she said, all teachers and assistants will receive a letter noting their exact pay when the new academic season starts. An accounting firm soon will be hired to perform a special audit.Now we know why unions make the contracts so complex. It is to confuse and help allow teachers to make more money than they are supposed to make. How many school districts do not make the teachers repay the mistakes?
It will now cost the taxpayers more money to audit the process. Will these auditors be the same auditors the district uses for their curent yearly audits? If so, why didn’t those auditors find the discrepancy during last years audit?
Documents show the overpaid classroom assistant who resigned was on pace to collect $39,466 — double her $19,733 annual salary — until the error was caught in January. Correll said the employee in question “should have been professional” and alerted officials about the noticeable discrepancy.
Yes, that employee should have notified the district. No, a doubling of pay should have been caught by the current payroll staff. Are those staff members still employed at the district after this mistake? They should not be employed anymore.
Wilbois said the mistakes in the teachers’ checks were found in a review of District 46′s payroll in July 2007.
District 46 board President Michael Linder said that in a school system with about 350 employees, it was surprising to learn a second payroll gaffe was discovered in January.
Gaffe is not exactly the word I would use for this. The error was found last July, but then it happened again this school year and found in January. I would call it incompetence.
I have a couple more questions:
- Why wasn’t the procedures fixed after the problem last July?
- With a known problem, why wasn’t payroll checked after the first few payrolls of the new school year instead of waiting until January?
- Again, is the same payroll staff still working for the district?
To Whom This May Concern:
As a former employee of District 46, I find this site absolutely appalling. You are greatly misinformed and only highlighting negatives of the district. The district has repeatedly asked the community for more money, not because they mishandle money, but because of the growing number of students the district MUST educate. Yes, I agree that there is a problem with the salaries that were inflated, however I wonder how many times that happens in corporations!?!
I would also like to address the following quote:
“Now we know why unions make the contracts so complex. It is to confuse and help allow teachers to make more money
than they are supposed to make. How many school districts do not make the teachers repay the mistakes?”
Again, you are incredibly misinformed. Do you believe that plumbers, construction or electricians do not deserve a union? The teachers union is there to protect what LITTLE teachers get in terms of money. We are not eligible for Social Security when we retire (whether it is our OWN or our spouses!). How can you honestly think that people who are educating YOUR CHILDREN should not be given some job protection? PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE NOT TO BE RUN LIKE BUSINESSES. That is the point. Instead of bashing the schools, teachers, administration–spend some time looking at the philosophy of public education and it’s history.
Furthermore, how dare you accuse teachers of not trying to do the best possible for your children. Your site sounds like a 7th grader who is mad at their teacher for giving them homework on the weekend. Perhaps you should get a job as a teacher to see the time, effort, and emotion that goes into this job. Teachers DO NOT work 9-3 and get June, July and August off. Thanks to ignorant people such as yourselves, teachers work throughout the year and are compensated not nearly as much as a businesses compensate their employees. If it is your goal to see the schools run more as a business, what are some solutions to compensate teachers more? Walk in my shoes for one day as a teacher. You would think very differently about the profession. Perhaps you would gain some respect for what we do!
If you people think that teachers/”government” schools are so poorly run, get your kids out of the system and home school them. Then you don’t have to worry about us “corrupting” them.
Just as John McCain did in the last debate, thank you for completely devaluing the teaching profession. I hope that your children do suffer as a result of your ignorance.
Former District 46: “I hope that your children do suffer as a result of your ignorance.”
Nice! You were a teacher???
Just curious, Former, how much pension do you make from the district? Was your salary bumped up just before you retired?
Oh, one more thing, no one forced you to come on this site, and the administrator didn’t have to post your comment. Just something to think about.
Let’s walk through a few of your points.
Teacher can have unions, but they should not be allowed to strike because the parents do not have a choice like in the real world. Public schools are a government monopoly.
Some history: Schools started as community schools paid for by the community with many being Protestant. This lead to anti-Catholic bigotry that was written into many State Consitution, like Illinois, called Blaine Amendments. Shall I continue?
There are some very good teachers around and there are some very bad teachers around. The good teachers need to stand up to their unions and stop them from protecting the bad teachers. They also need to quit using our children as pawns.
“teachers work throughout the year and are compensated not nearly as much as a businesses compensate their employees”, See the report by the Wall Street Journal debunking this myth: http://educationmatters.us/2007/02/02/are-public-school-teachers-underpaid/
Read this post and you’ll see my solution to paying teachers more: http://educationmatters.us/2007/07/13/money-is-not-the-answer/