Superintendent who leads opposition to Bears property tax appeal gets 4% raise from school board

Northwest Suburban High School District 214 Superintendent Scott Rowe received a 4% raise Tuesday as he approaches his anniversary at the helm of the state’s second-largest high school district.

There are no guaranteed raises in the four-year employment agreement Rowe inked with the school board last year, but the performance-based contract allows the board to award increases to salary and benefits following an annual evaluation in closed session.

In this case, all seven board members agreed with the 4% raise — from a base salary of $280,000 to $291,200 — and approved it formally during a special school board meeting Tuesday morning.

“We wanted a lot of things, and we told him that,” board President Alva Kreutzer said. “He’s really come through with all of them.”

Among the items on Rowe’s to-do list since he began the job last July: launching a strategic planning process, addressing chronic absenteeism, and obtaining feedback from teachers and other employees via staff surveys, according to Kreutzer.

But perhaps the biggest item Rowe has tried to tackle is the ongoing property tax negotiation process with the Chicago Bears — a dispute that started to percolate just before Rowe came aboard last summer.

Rowe, with the superintendents of Palatine-Schaumburg High School District 211 and Palatine Township Elementary District 15, has led the schools’ opposition to the NFL franchise’s property assessment appeal for the 326-acre Arlington Park site. In a case now pending before the state’s property tax appeal board, a lower property value would slash the amount of taxes the Bears have to pay to the districts and other taxing bodies.

Rowe has said the superintendents have been mischaracterized for potentially quashing the deal to bring the Bears to Arlington Heights, amid the team’s shift this spring to Chicago’s lakefront.

Kreutzer said Tuesday negotiations with the Bears over a possible settlement are “in a holding pattern” while the team explores a Chicago stadium development.

“We are still firm, a united front with the districts, and we’re just waiting. We’re just waiting to see what happens,” she said. “We haven’t had any discussions really in the past couple months. We’re just waiting for the Bears to decide.”

Rowe’s contract runs through June 30, 2027.