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The Examiner U-46 News Feed

Split vote results in new pact for U-46 CEO


By Seth Hancock
  Despite nearly two years remaining under a current contract, the board majority in School District U-46 supported a new pact for CEO Tony Sanders on Monday, Nov. 7.
  By a 5-2 vote, Cody Holt and Jeanette Ward voting no, the board approved the termination of Sanders previous contract, which ran through June 30, 2018, and replaced it with a contract through June 30, 2020.
  The current salary of $221,708.81 will remain through this school year and Sanders will be given a 2.75 percent raise next year with performance-based raises thereafter. The board will also contribute to his Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund “in lieu” of Sanders’ own contributions.
  There are goals set under six separate items ranging from full-day kindergarten to efficiency, excellence and accountability with 17 total bullet points.
  Donna Smith, the board’s president who is up for reelection this upcoming spring, said: “I just want to point out that the goals that were in his previous contract were put there because it was more of an interim position, and they were not real detailed. They were more general goals.”
  “This provides for stability in the leadership for the district for this year and the next three years,” Smith added.
  However, the timing is peculiar which Holt noted that “usually when we decide on who’s going to lead our district, usually those decisions come around” the spring. Holt told The Examiner after the meeting that former superintendent Jose Torres got his first contract in May, 2008 with an extension in June 2009 while before Torres, Connie Neale’s last contract extension was in May 2007.
  The only exception was Sanders being named CEO at the start of the 2014-15 school year, but that was to replace Torres who had just left U-46. Sanders received an extension in April 2015.
  Why make this decision now, “as of November midway through a school year?” Holt asked.
  “We had talked about taking the chief of staff portion out of it,” said Smith when part-time interim superintendent Kenneth Arndt’s contract, who is needed since Sanders currently cannot sign documents requiring a superintendent’s signature, was renewed last June. At the time, Smith never publicly said that Sanders would receive a new contract but rather his current contract may be updated.
  Board members Sue Kerr and Phil Costello, who both voted for the contract, said the new contract was needed for the goals as Kerr said “I think we also were developing goals which are very specific.”
  Costello said he understands Holt’s concerns and “I think we should take up the argument and have a discussion about this,” but “I want to gravitate towards something’s that very objective.” He said Sanders’ attributes include “his objectivity and his willingness and expectation to be held accountable for results.”
  However, the board could have updated the previous contract with specific goals.
  “I think also, as the discussion that we all had, we recognize that for the most part we were all satisfied with Tony’s performance,” said board member Traci Ellis. “The community is satisfied with Tony’s performance, and we did not have the desire to spend 50 grand on a search, on a national search. So once you’ve sort of made those conclusions, there was no reason to arbitrarily wait until April or May.”
  Ellis’ claim of public support for Sanders ignores recent decisions by Sanders which show that it is unclear whether he has the public’s support after he divided the public regarding transgender bathroom/locker room access as he changed district practices behind closed doors and subsequently made politically charged comments dismissing public concerns. That led to three straight board meetings where 76 of nearly 160 public comments were opposed to the decision including district residents making statements like “if I had you as a Chief Executive Officer … you would be out of here” and one private school administrator saying “my head would be on the chopping block” if he made a controversial decision like that without public input.
  Ward responded to Ellis’ remark: “I would like to make the comment that not voting on this tonight doesn’t mean we have to spend $50,000 on a search. It doesn’t mean we have to go searching for a CEO or a superintendent right now. It just means that this CEO/superintendent is approved until June of 2018.”
  “And I have expressed this in closed [session] that I think it’s not wise to tie the hands of the next board with respect to the decision to offer this CEO a contract until 2020…. The next board will be in place as of 2017 with enough time to begin a search if they so choose,” Ward added.
  Holt later said “it’s nothing against Tony Sanders. I do think he has been doing an exceptional job” but “as of May of next year there’s two years until the next board election.”
  Ellis said that Sanders “is marketable” and could leave before the end of the previous contract, but then admitted “that could always happen.” She also said “there’s always going to be a new board” and the upcoming election is not justification to oppose the contract.
  That was an about-face from Ellis who in November 2014 said in wanting to hold off a superintendent search: “This board is going to change, potentially significantly, next year. Nobody wants to be hired by one board and a month later your bosses change.”
  This new contract comes after Gov. Bruce Rauner signed Senate Bill 242 on Aug. 19 which is a carve out for U-46 to hire a CEO without the required superintendent’s certifications placed by the state. That takes effect on June 1, 2017 making Arndt necessary until then.
  “We’re still partially through this contract, and we’re eight months from the law going into effect that would essentially allow Tony Sanders to be the CEO,” Holt said.
  In August 2015 Smith publicly announced she was working with state legislators on this carve out, but throughout she always said it was to allow Sanders to be “a candidate” when a search took place, not to automatically make Sanders the CEO with no search.
  That bill was a carve out, and possibly unconstitutional, as it applies to districts “that lie in three counties, one county of which has a population exceeding 1,000,000 inhabitants, that has an enrollment of more than 35,000 students” which U-46 is the only district that meets those requirements. 
  When Smith announced the board would seek a carve out Costello, Holt and Ward all said they would like to see the board lobby for a bill that would extend to all school districts, or at least more than just one. Furthermore, Section 13 of the Illinois Constitution states: “The General Assembly shall pass no special or local law when a general law is or can be made applicable.”
  Despite the possible unconstitutionality of the bill and colleagues asking for a general bill rather than a carve out, Smith and the board majority only sought the carve out.

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