April 14--Newly released Lincoln-Way High School District 210 meeting records show no public discussion of a controversial taxpayer-funded annuity for the cash-strapped district's former superintendent.
Those records also show that district officials did not write ex-Superintendent Lawrence Wyllie's annuity into his employment contract until May 2010, even though the account first opened in 2004. Altogether, the school district paid $368,148 into the annuity, with $192,582 of that coming before the annuity was formally written into Wyllie's contract, records show. Wyllie's son, Christopher, is listed on account statements as the policy's agent.
Wyllie's final contract with the district was approved on May 8, 2010, during the same school board meeting where Wyllie told board members, "this will be another tough year," and said it would be necessary to cut $1.6 million in expenses, according to meeting minutes.
Later in the meeting, the board approved Wyllie's contract, including a promise that the board would pay $4,876.80 each month to a "board funded annuity" of Wyllie's choice until the contract's end in summer 2015. The district stopped paying when Wyllie retired in 2013.
Frankfort resident Brian Murray said the lack of public discussion about Wyllie's annuity during open meetings is "certainly not full disclosure of what should've been told to the people in the district."
"How would the public know about this?" Murray said.
Lincoln-Way Board President Dee Molinare issued a statement late Wednesday saying "reference to the annuity was notated in the addendum to (Wyllie's) contract and then articulated (sic) his contract in 2010." Molinare added that the annuity "was based on performance and retention during a time of transition within the district."
Board members knew Wyllie was in line for a pension when they approved the retirement annuity. Wyllie currently collects the state's largest teachers pension at $312,000 a year.
Government experts contacted by the Daily Southtown panned the annuity and the process.
Sarah Brune, executive director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, said it's "troubling" that the board voted to approve the contract with the annuity at the same meeting where it cut spending.
"Not even going into how it's wrong for there to be two retirement accounts for a public servant ... there was no transparency as to how it was set up," Brune said. "If I were a resident of that area, I'd be very upset."
Ben Silver, a community lawyer with the Citizen Advocacy Center in Elmhurst, said the district's process was "definitely not transparent."
Besides the annuity, Wyllie's final contract also includes "lifetime staff privileges regarding the fitness center, the field house and the pool" for Wyllie and his wife, Marilyn, as long as they remain district residents.
To many in Lincoln-Way, Wyllie's annuity is an example of financial mismanagement and excess by district officials.
The district landed on the state's financial watch list in 2015, where it remains, after years of deficit spending. In response, school board officials are planning to close Lincoln-Way North, which is less than a decade old, at the end of this academic year.
Wyllie's annuity came to light earlier this month, after the Daily Southtown reported that the district paid $368,148 into the account.
The school board voted on April 7, 2004, to approve Wyllie's annuity as part of a broader vote on 2004-05 administration and support staff salaries, Vice President Christine Glatz previously said. The meeting minutes from that date do not mention the annuity.
Glatz also said the district made "adjustments" to Wyllie's annuity in 2006, 2007 and 2010.
The Daily Southtown filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the district for meeting minutes, agendas and packets with supporting materials from those meetings. None of the minutes or agendas released by the district mention Wyllie's annuity, and Lincoln-Way officials said they have no audio recordings of the meetings.
When Wyllie retired in the summer of 2013, the district transferred ownership of the annuity to him, records show. A March 2013 policy statement released by the district shows the annuity was worth $515,685 at the time.
In recent months, the Daily Southtown has reported extensively on questionable financial practices, private uses of public resources and questionable deals benefiting district insiders.
--In 2007, Lincoln-Way bought $5 million worth of farmland in Manhattan Township, apparently without an appraisal, in a deal that benefited the Lincoln-Way Foundation president's firm.
--The school district's former grounds director, Paul Gonzalez, resigned in 2013 after it was discovered that he had ordered employees to do private work in Wyllie's subdivision and build an off-campus memorial for Wyllie's father.
District officials kept records detailing Gonzalez's actions from the public until this year, when the Southtown challenged the district's records denial with the state attorney general's office.
--The district paid $35,887 in tuition reimbursements to its former assistant superintendent for business, Ron Sawin, who is retiring early amid a performance dispute. The district paid most of its tuition reimbursements to Sawin even after he told them, in January 2014, that he'd be retiring in 2018.
--Last month, Lincoln-Way emailed parents to say the district is issuing refunds to driver's ed students who were improperly charged $350 for classes, a mistake the district estimated would cost about $400,000.
The district was given more than a year's notice that it had to renew its permission from the state to charge $350, but district officials have declined to explain how it failed to get state approval to assess that fee.
--A no-bid, 10-year contract extension between Frankfort-based Aunt Nancy's day care -- which uses rent-free spaces at each of the district's four schools -- and the district was signed by Wyllie but never approved by the school board.
The district also bought at least $90,000 worth of playground equipment for Aunt Nancy's to use, records show.
--Wyllie spent nearly $45,000 to host Superdog, a dog obedience school, in a barn at Lincoln-Way North and that current Superintendent Scott Tingley said had "no student benefit." Superdog is run by a trainer who has worked with Wyllie and his dogs.
--Wyllie used his district-issued credit card to spend about $30,000 in the three years before he retired on items including meals, dog training books, hundreds of leadership texts, dozens of sweaters and a $106 Vermont teddy bear for his office.
--From 2013 to 2015, a time when the district's financial situation was rapidly deteriorating, the district paid out $272,000 in retirement bonuses for 18 employees, including $16,000 for Wyllie, records show.
The district also has paid $199,113 in penalties to the state pension system.
gpratt@tribpub.com
