Although he had planned to make the 2012-13 school year his last as superintendent of Komarek School District 94, Neil Pellicci will remain on board through the 2014-15 school year after the school board on Aug. 14 voted 4 to 1 to extend his contract.
Pellicci has been at Komarek District 94 for 26 years and has been superintendent since the 2002-03 school year. Prior to that Pellicci served as Komarek’s principal for 15 years. He spent a year before that as principal and teacher in Lockport and worked for 10 years as a science teacher and self-contained elementary classroom teacher in Darien School District 61.
The board approved a two-year extension to Pellicci’s current deal, one that will increase his salary by 2 percent in each of the final two years. The board already approved a 4-percent increase in Pellicci’s salary for the 2012-13 school year after he took a pay freeze in 2011-12.
School board President Deborah Czajka, who was not present for the Aug. 14 vote, expressed her support for the move in an interview last week. Czajka said the school board decided to retain Pellicci’s services in order to get the district through the negotiation of a new teacher’s contract this year, the hiring of a new head of maintenance and a school board election in 2013 that could see a number of new faces coming aboard.
Czajka said the board feels Pellicci is doing a “darn good job” and said the board was amenable to the proposed raises in the final two years, saying that compared to the salaries of superintendents in other nearby districts, “I think we’re getting a bit of a deal.”
The only board member voting against extending the contract was Patricia Martinson, who did not comment on her vote at the Aug. 14 meeting. She also did not reply to an email from the Landmark seeking an explanation for her vote against the deal.
For the 2011-12 school year, Pellicci’s base salary was $153,072. Based on the raises approved by the school board, his base salary for his final year in the district will be approximately $165,600, an increase of 8.2 percent.
The 2011-12 base salary for District 95 Superintendent Mark Kuzniewski was $160,000, while District 96 Superintendent Jonathan Lamberson earned $277,122 and District 103 Superintendent Michael Warner made $166,141. In the 2012-13 school year, District 102 Superintendent Warren Shillingburg will make $185,769.
In addition, the district will continue to pay Pellicci’s full contribution to the Teachers Retirement System and Illinois Teachers Health Insurance Security fund, for retiree health insurance coverage. In 2011-12 that combined contribution amounted to almost $16,000.
The district will also continue to pay 100 percent of the premiums for Pellicci’s health and dental insurance, a benefit worth almost $22,000 in 2011-12, according to the district’s state-mandated administrative salary compensation report on its website.
School board members also amended Pellicci’s contract on Aug. 14 to extend the time period that Pellicci, 58, will continue to receive full health insurance coverage after he retires. The school board and Pellicci formerly agreed that the district would contribute 100 percent of Pellicci’s health and dental insurance premiums until he was 60.
The new agreement extends that benefit for Pellicci and his immediate family until the age of 65.
