Post by title1parent on Jul 8, 2011 6:54:43 GMT -5
Dear District 204 Community,
The Board of Education announces our next step in creating a consistent benefits package for our four employee groups and better aligning those benefits with that of our taxpayer community.
As in most school districts, our administrators currently enjoy health care coverage at no personal cost. While this level of coverage may have been appropriate in the past, we believe today’s economic times require all employees to pay a share of health care costs. As such, beginning January 1, 2012, our administrators will be responsible for the same share of their health care expenses as our three other employee groups.
We recognize that our administrators, comprised primarily of principals and assistant principals, are some of the best in the business and are critical partners in achieving success for our students. In addition, compared to benchmark districts, our administrators lead buildings with significantly more students and receive below-average compensation.
Because administrator compensation is already below market, it is vitally important that we make this adjustment in a fair and reasonable manner. We believe doing otherwise would jeopardize our ability to attract and retain high caliber administrators and lead to lesser outcomes for our students.
With these concerns in mind, the Board has agreed to increase the average administrator's 2011-12 net salary by 0.92 percent (comprised of a 2.88 percent salary increase, off-set by 1.96 percent in health care costs). This follows the pay freeze our administrators received in 2010-11. Going forward, our administrators will proportionately share the responsibility of future health care cost increases in the same manner as our other employees.
The Board hopes you find these adjustments to be a reasonable solution for balancing the desire for public employees to pay an appropriate share of health care costs with the need to retain our very best educators.
We would like to thank our administrators for their hard work and dedication to our students. And, we would also like to thank you, our community, for your support as we continue to work to become Illinois' premier school district.
Sincerely,
Curt Bradshaw, President
Susan Rasmus, Vice President
Cathy Piehl, Secretary
Dawn DeSart
Lori Price
Mark Rising
Chris Vickers
The Board of Education announces our next step in creating a consistent benefits package for our four employee groups and better aligning those benefits with that of our taxpayer community.
As in most school districts, our administrators currently enjoy health care coverage at no personal cost. While this level of coverage may have been appropriate in the past, we believe today’s economic times require all employees to pay a share of health care costs. As such, beginning January 1, 2012, our administrators will be responsible for the same share of their health care expenses as our three other employee groups.
We recognize that our administrators, comprised primarily of principals and assistant principals, are some of the best in the business and are critical partners in achieving success for our students. In addition, compared to benchmark districts, our administrators lead buildings with significantly more students and receive below-average compensation.
Because administrator compensation is already below market, it is vitally important that we make this adjustment in a fair and reasonable manner. We believe doing otherwise would jeopardize our ability to attract and retain high caliber administrators and lead to lesser outcomes for our students.
With these concerns in mind, the Board has agreed to increase the average administrator's 2011-12 net salary by 0.92 percent (comprised of a 2.88 percent salary increase, off-set by 1.96 percent in health care costs). This follows the pay freeze our administrators received in 2010-11. Going forward, our administrators will proportionately share the responsibility of future health care cost increases in the same manner as our other employees.
The Board hopes you find these adjustments to be a reasonable solution for balancing the desire for public employees to pay an appropriate share of health care costs with the need to retain our very best educators.
We would like to thank our administrators for their hard work and dedication to our students. And, we would also like to thank you, our community, for your support as we continue to work to become Illinois' premier school district.
Sincerely,
Curt Bradshaw, President
Susan Rasmus, Vice President
Cathy Piehl, Secretary
Dawn DeSart
Lori Price
Mark Rising
Chris Vickers