Illinois school district superintendents keep finding ways to retire with generous Illinois pensions while continuing to get salaries to boot.
The scheme works because Illinois law lets retired educators collect a pension and go back to work, so long as they work part-time and no more than the equivalent of half-a-year.
Another example we’ve come across is a husband and wife tag team that recently shared a superintendent role 50/50. Dr. John Correll and Ellen Correll served as the interim superintendents at Skokie School District 73.5 during the 2020/2021 school year.
They were each paid $90,000 or a combined $180,000, according to the Illinois State Board of Education’s 2021 EIS database. That’s about $15,000 more than the state average for superintendent salaries.
What makes their work a double-dip is the fact that both retired and began collecting retirement checks from the Teachers Retirement System in 2019.
John Correll is currently receiving more than $210,000 a year and can expect more than $5 million in benefits during retirement. Ellen Correll, with fewer years of service credit in Illinois, is collecting a pension of nearly $80,000 and can expect $2.2 million in total benefits.
The couple also double-dipped the year before by serving as interim superintendents for the Antioch Consolidated School District 34.
Nice work if you can get it.
As we’ve said before, in the grand scheme of Illinois’ pension crisis, double-dipping is a niche issue. But it’s emblematic of Illinois’ corrupted retirement system. Double dipping works because Tier 1 public sector workers can retire with full pensions while still young enough to get other lucrative public sector jobs.
It’s another reason to retire pensions altogether and move to 401(k)-style plans.