Four experienced investigators will conduct residency investigations at Riverside Brookfield High School this year in cases where the school administration suspects that students may not live within Riverside-Brookfield High School District 208.
On Aug. 24 the District 208 school board voted unanimously to hire the four individuals and pay them $45 an hour to conduct investigations on an as-needed basis.
For the past two years, RB had used the firm National Investigations to do residency investigations, but District 208 Interim Superintendent David Bonnette believes the new hires will do a better job than National Investigations and could cost RB less money.
“It’ll be far more efficient, it’ll be more direct, it’ll be more purposeful, it’ll be focused and far more effective than what we had previously,” Bonnette said.
The four investigators all have extensive law enforcement experience, Bonnette said.
“They are all very experienced FBI and police investigators,” Bonnette said. Those hired include retired FBI agents Rob Dibbern and William Keefe and retired Oak Park police officers Frank Kennedy and Richard Toll.
The four have a combined law enforcement experience of more than 100 years, Bonnette said. The four will work as direct employees of RB, but only be paid for the hours they actually work.
“We get a break on the cost if they work as our direct employees versus retaining them as a firm,” Bonnette said.
Bonnette said that no investigator would work for more than 600 hours and none of them would receive fringe benefits.
The four currently conduct residency investigations for Oak Park and River Forest High School, Oak Park Elementary District 97, River Forest Elementary District 90 and Forest Park Elementary District 91.
Driver ed fees going up
Also at the Aug. 24 meeting, the District 208 school board voted unanimously to increase the fee for driver education to $325 from the current $300. The $25 fee increase will take effect at the start of the second semester in January, assuming the Illinois state legislature does not block the fee increase.
The state legislature can block the fee increase, because state law caps the fee for driver education at $50 unless the state legislature grants a school district a waiver. The waiver process is typically a formality, because the state legislature routinely grants such waivers to school districts. The state legislature must specifically vote to disallow the fee increase to prevent it from taking effect. If the legislature does nothing, the fee increase will go into effect in January.
“Sometimes they will not vote to disallow it, thereby allowing it,” Bonnette said.
Including the teacher salary, it costs RB about $365 per student to offer driver education, according to information provided to the school board.
About 15 to 20 percent of driver education students at RB have their fees waived, because they qualify for the free lunch program, which is determined by family income. The state reimbursed RB about $165 per student for driver education costs in the 2008-09 school year.
At Lyons Township High School, driver education students are required to pay $150 to the school and $20 to the Illinois Secretary of State office, according to District 204 spokeswoman Jennifer Bialobok.
