The Carol Stream school superintendent whose salary was slashed after angry parents discovered he was the highest-paid in Illinois is now due for almost $150,000 in additional pay after retirement.
On Aug. 25, the board of Carol Stream Elementary School District 93 approved an additional $147,543 for District 93 Supt. John DiBuono, to be paid out during the five years following his retirement in 1996.
The funds are tied to two provisions in his contract, said Janet Wuellner, board president. One allows him to be paid for consulting work, and the other provides for a retirement stipend.
Wuellner said that in November 1990 the school board adopted a policy providing that all employees with at least 10 years of experience who give one year’s notice of retirement are eligible to work for the district 25 days annually for each of five years. The policy sets the pay at 20 percent of the employee’s final year salary.
DiBuono’s contract states that his compensation will be “in accordance with the policies of the board governing payment of other professional staff members in the district.”
Hiring the superintendent to work part-time after retirement complies with his contract and the board policy, Wuellner said.
For DiBuono, the consulting pay will be $27,221 a year, or $136,105 total for the five years. Because the policy stipulates that the employee work 25 days each year, the pay rate is more than $1,000 a day. Wuellner said DiBuono’s duties will be determined by the next superintendent.
DiBuono also will receive $11,438 as a retirement stipend when he leaves, Wuellner said.
The board’s policy states that employees who work part-time after retirement are eligible for the district’s regular medical benefits. However, that does not matter to DiBuono. His contract provides that the board will continue to pay full medical benefits until DiBuono, 55, reaches age 70.
The retirement pay “nothing new,” Wuellner said.
James Franczek, an attorney representing more than 100 Chicago-area school boards, said, “It’s not at all unusual for a school district to have a policy about pay after retirement. There is nothing illegal about this.”
Before DiBuono’s salary was cut by the District 93 board in June, he was to be paid $188,298 in salary and other benefits for 1993-94. That compensation package made him the highest-paid among 930 Illinois school superintendents in a report by the Illinois State Board of Education.
Disclosure of his pay prompted parents on June 17 to demand reductions in his contract by the school board. Under public pressure, the board renegotiated DiBuono’s contract, slashing his compensation by $69,000. His revised pay was nearly $120,000.
The superintendent agreed to eliminate a clause providing a 20 percent salary increase for each of the last three years of work before retirement. Also, no merit pay will be given during his last three years on the job. The two provisions would have given him an estimated $200,000 combined for 1993-94, 1994-95 and 1995-96.
DiBuono has said he will retire June 30, 1996. His salary was $104,148 for 1993-94 and will be $107,272 for 1994-95 and $110,490 for 1995-96. An 8 percent pension payment by the board and 7 percent annuity will boost his total compensation to $124,000 and $128,000 during the next two years, according to an estimate provided by John Canna, board attorney.
Efforts to reach DiBuono for comment were unsuccessful.
But the newest disclosure about DiBuono’s compensation has triggered another protest by parents.
“I’m wondering what he’s going to be doing for $1,000 a day,” said Helen Herbst, a Carol Stream parent.
Herbst prepared fliers that were distributed to parents in the school district demanding an explanation from the school board.
She and other parents expect to attend Thursday evening’s school board meeting to ask the board to justify its action.
“Our elected officials need to hear that we want our tax dollars spent on our children,” said Michelle Lents, a Carol Stream mother.
Lents questioned whether the board’s Aug. 25 action was a payback to DiBuono after it had slashed his salary June 17.
Wuellner said that it was not but that the board was only putting specific numbers in the superintendent’s contract.
Marsha Latoria, a school board member, also denied the new money constitutes a payback to DiBuono.
“We tried to negotiate down as far as we could his contract,” she said of the board’s June 17 effort to pare his pay.
But Latoria said the superintendent is entitled by his contract to the specific dollar amounts the board authorized on Aug. 25.
