A pay raise and additional one-time bonus payment, totaling a combined $10,000, were recently awarded to the executive director of the Park Ridge Park District following an annual review of her performance by the elected board of commissioners.
By a vote of 4-0, the board on Feb. 15 approved a raise of $6,500 for Executive Director Gayle Mountcastle, bumping her annual salary to $174,000, said Park District spokeswoman Margaret Holler.
The raise is retroactive to Jan. 1, Holler said.
Voting in support were Commissioners Cindy Grau, Harmony Harrington, Jim O’Donnell and Jim O’Brien. Absent from the meeting were Commissioners Jim Janak, Robert Leach and Mel Thillens.
O’Brien, the board’s president, said the commissioners who voted in support of the raise agreed that Mountcastle’s work performance “exceeded our expectations based on the criteria we set out a year ago,” resulting in the wage increase that was approved.
Last year, the park board approved a $6,000 raise for Mountcastle. She received a $6,500 raise the previous year.
In a report to the board, Mountcastle indicated that she met the major 2017 objectives that were set for her, with the exception of updating the board policy manual — which she said will be completed this year — and presenting the board with an updated personnel policy manual, which is reportedly being reviewed by the district’s superintendents.
Another of Mountcastle’s objectives was leading the park district’s major capital projects, which Mountcastle said involved the completion of renovations at Maine Park and the establishment of a “priority plan” for future improvements at Oakton Park. She also reported to the board that the park district’s budget projects a 2017 year-end operating surplus of $190,515, and that internal park district committees were monitored to make sure they completed specific initiatives.
O’Brien credited Mountcastle for the park district’s “financial stability.”
“Something I’m proud of is the fact that more of the revenue to run the district is coming from fees as opposed to tax dollars,” he said. “She continues to work with her staff to do that. I think she’s demonstrated leadership also among her team, coaching them to be better leaders in their areas.”
On March 1, the board, with Commissioners Grau, Harrington, Janak, Leach, and Thillens present, voted to give Mountcastle an additional $3,500 bonus as part of an incentive plan adopted by the board last year.
The plan allows the board to pay the executive director a bonus of up to $10,000 based on the amount of “alternative revenue” she is responsible for bringing into the park district outside of user fees, property taxes, facility revenues or bond and interest proceeds.
Holler said the amount of alternative revenue for 2017 was $148,165.
Mountcastle was hired as executive director of the park district in March 2011 at a salary of $125,000, according to park district documents. She had previously worked as the park district’s superintendent of recreation from 1997 to 2003 before taking a similar position within the Des Plaines Park District.
Out of 18 suburban park districts, the base pay of the Park Ridge Park District’s executive director is the fifth-highest, according to information shared with the board. The Highland Park Park District’s base pay, at $198,172, was ranked the highest compensation of the 18 park districts, according to the data. That park district’s director has been in the position for nine years, the document said.
The lowest base compensation — $118,000 — is paid by the Addison Park District, which is led by a director who has been on the job for less than two years, according to the data.
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