The base pay of the president is $400,000, so if your yearly retirement payments are almost as much as what Joe Biden makes, another $120,000 deposited in your bank account may seem to some as overkill.
That could be why Joyce Carmine, the former superintendent of Park Forest-Chicago Heights Elementary District 163, and now its interim superintendent, may have decided that if money were no object, she would object to the $1,200 a day salary while serving for a 100-day term this school year.
So, she asked the board if a mere $750 a day would be good enough?
Done, said the board.
Later, when asked why she wanted to go back to work for less money Carmine replied, “they need me here and money should not be an issue.”
Depending on who is queried, it was merely a public relations ploy or a friendly gesture.
In past years, the dollars next to Carmine’s name became a political minefield in a community concerned with high property taxes. When she retired from District 163 in 2017, Carmine’s salary was $398,229; a sum that according to one watchdog group, Open the Books, made her the highest paid school superintendent in the state and with a pension of just under $300,000.
Under Illinois law, former state employees who get a pension cannot return to the same job as a full-time employee and can only work 100 days a year.
When Caletha White was hired in 2018 at a salary of $182,462, as the new district boss replacing Carmine, the school board also approved the hiring of Carmine at $1,200 a day to help “mentor” White for one year. Then board President Lance Jefferson explained the move was a win-win because “she knew the district.”
That was then.
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Earlier this year, voters elected Kim Elmore-Perkins and Margaret McDannel to the board replacing incumbent Judy Hawthorne and Randall White, who stepped away from the board by winning a seat on the Park Forest Village Board.
The result changed the politics of the board. McDannel, who was once elected to seven consecutive terms before being defeated in 2021, was confirmed as the new board president on a 4-3 vote at its first meeting in April, replacing Walter Mosby, who was entangled in controversy when his wife, Belinda, was twice nominated for but twice failed to get a job with the district.
The family friendly board does not have an anti-nepotism policy and according to Village Trustee White, the old Chicago adage of “who do you know?” was in operation in the district for years with board members and staff getting close relatives either jobs or contracts with the school district or, on the other hand, were punished for alleged misdeeds.
When it became public that Superintendent White would be reassigned to other duties at the May board meeting and that Carmine was waiting in the wings, a large group of supporters packed into the board room in the 20th Century school library, in what rapidly turned into a rowdy session as dozens of Caletha White’s supporters, including a very vocal Trustee White, voiced support for the outgoing superintendent.
In the end, after an hour-plus closed door session, the board voted 4-3 to reassign the superintendent with board members Allison McCray, Takesha Howard and then board President Mosby voting to keep White.
At the June board meeting, harmony prevailed as almost every vote was a unanimous 5-0, with both Mosby and Howard absent from the session. According to sources, both were also absent from three other board gatherings that month. When asked, McDannel said she tried to contact both but without success.
A few days after that disorderly May meeting, Park Forest Village President Joe Woods issued a 600-word statement saying municipalities “have no jurisdiction over public schools whatsoever,” and asked village officials to be prudent in their public comments.
When asked, Woods said he was not pointing a finger at anyone, but merely wanted the public to understand that the oil of the Village Board affairs should not mix with the water of the School Board matters.
Jerry Shnay is a freelance columnist for the Daily Southtown.