Pence hired as full-time superintendent once again

Todd Pence is a full-time superintendent once again.

On Wednesday, the St. Joseph Grade School Board of Education voted to terminate its interim superintendent Agreement with Pence and approved a full-time superintendent agreement with him for the 2022-23 school year.

In an email to staff, Pence said that an issue was created with the Teacher’s Retirement System of the State of Illinois when the board hired him to be the interim superintendent at the July 11, 2022 board meeting.

“Since the district and I entered into the agreement that night and even though it didn’t start until August 1, TRS has determined the agreement violated their 30-day rule making my July 1st retirement date null and void.”

TRS requires that retirees wait for 30 calendar dates from the date of resignation before performing any post-retirement work for the same employer.

Pence said this left him and the district with two options. He could retire immediately. If he did that the district would have had to find another interim superintendent because he would have been prohibited from working as an interim superintendent for the remainder of the school year. The other option would be to hire him back full-time for the remainder of the school year.

Interim superintendents are limited to 120 days of work or 600 hours.

Pence said that both the district and himself are taking a hit financially.

As an interim superintendent, the district was paying him roughly half of what he made during the 2021-22 school year. Now they will be paying him the total cost of his 2021-22 salary, which was $201,570.93.

“For me, it is also a hit because I would be drawing my retirement and getting paid to serve as interim, which combined is more than I will be making to return full time,” Pence said. “The Board felt that consistency as we hire a new superintendent for next year, and to make the transition go as smoothly as possible, that the best choice was to rehire me back full time. So I will be working my normal schedule for the rest of the year.”