For years, Dr. Kevin J. Nohelty has been the highest-paid public school district superintendent in Illinois.<\/p>\n
He has made more money each year than the heads of 10 public universities in Illinois.\u00a0He\u2019s made more each year than the mayor of Chicago.\u00a0He\u2019s made more each year than anyone in the U.S. Congress.\u00a0He\u2019s even made more each year than the president of the United States. His pay is more than half a million dollars annually, paid by residents in south suburban Riverdale and Dolton, where the average income is one-tenth of Nohelty’s.<\/p>\n
Up to today, Nohelty has been in charge of Dolton School District 148, which oversees 10 grade schools. He\u2019s been there since 2016.\u00a0In that time, his salary has nearly doubled. But during that same period, the district\u2019s financial profile has fallen from the Illinois State Board of Education\u2019s top rank to its lowest rank, and Dolton 148 is now the only public school district in Cook County on the Illinois State Board of Education\u2019s \u201cWatch List.\u201d<\/p>\n
That spurred NBC 5 Investigates to start asking questions about a possible disconnect between Nohelty\u2019s income, the district\u2019s low financial status with the state, and the tax burden of the residents who pay his salary.\u00a0No one, however, would talk to us, until Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when Nohelty\u2019s attorney contacted NBC 5 to say that Nohelty resigned from his job, citing \u201ca smear campaign\u2026. riddled with baseless allegations, innuendo and repeated threats of investigations and discharge\u201d which he alleges is being orchestrated by the board’s new president. His attorney says Nohelty\u2019s resignation has nothing to do with NBC 5\u2019s inquiries.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Significantly, however, Nohelty\u2019s portrayal of a toxic atmosphere is very different than how things apparently were this past spring.\u00a0 That\u2019s when the Dolton 148 Board of Education \u2013 under different leadership \u2013 voted to give Nohelty a raise of $60,000 over the next two school years \u2013 despite protests from residents.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s ridiculous that he\u2019s paid more than the city of Chicago superintendent,\u201d said one Riverdale resident at that board meeting.\u00a0\u201cQuit padding somebody\u2019s pocket.\u00a0You are doing the kids a disservice.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHalf a million dollars?\u201d said another resident\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t recall ever being on a financial watch.\u00a0 What made you consider to even do something like that?\u201d<\/p>\n
(This afternoon, Nohelty\u2019s attorney said the high salary is due to Nohelty\u2019s handling both superintendent duties and the job of the school\u2019s business officer.)<\/p>\n
We found that Nohelty does have decades of experience in Chicago-area school districts \u2013 most recently as an assistant superintendent in charge of business or finances for school districts in Hanover Park, Palatine, Wilmette, Lincolnwood and Harvey.\u00a0But when NBC 5 Investigates began to research his past jobs (as well as his job with Dolton 148), we found repeated allegations of financial mismanagement \u2013 all of which Nohelty denies \u2013 as well as apparent unpaid bills and other issues in Nohelty\u2019s personal life.<\/p>\n
NBC 5 Investigates repeatedly reached out to the school board members, as well as to Nohelty himself, with our findings. We left voicemails, sent repeated emails, and mailed a letter to Nohelty\u2019s home \u2013 all requesting comment.\u00a0Neither Nohelty nor the members of the school board replied to any of our requests, until Nohelty\u2019s attorney contacted us today.<\/p>\n
NBC 5 Investigates found Nohelty was arrested by the Illinois State Police on March 9, 2024, on the Interstate 90 tollway near Belvidere and charged with driving under the influence, along with two traffic charges.\u00a0 He pled no-contest, according to his attorney, to misdemeanor DUI and was ordered to pay fines, attend classes and serve a year of supervision, which will end in October.\u00a0 If the supervision is served to the judge\u2019s satisfaction, the charge will be removed from Nohelty\u2019s driving record, as is customary in Illinois.<\/p>\n
We also found court filings alleging that \u2013 between 2015 and 2024 \u2013 Nohelty had defaulted or not made timely payments on six different credit cards; that eviction papers had been filed twice against him for non-payment of rent; and that a bank started foreclosure proceedings against a home he owned with his then-wife after they allegedly made no payments on their mortgage for 18 months.\u00a0All these apparent unpaid bills and credit card balances added up to $52,259.89, according to public records. In the case of the mortgage foreclosure, Nohelty eventually sold the house and paid off the mortgage.<\/p>\n
We also discovered allegations of financial questions in Nohelty’s professional work. NBC 5 Investigates found court documents alleging that Nohelty \u201cfailed to properly account for District Funds\u201d of more than $1.4 million dollars at Lincolnwood School District 74, where he was assistant superintendent for business from 2010 to 2012.\u00a0 Nohelty said the charges were false and politically motivated due to his support for previous board members.<\/p>\n
Nohelty was dismissed by Lincolnwood but soon got a job with Harvey School District 152.\u00a0 But NBC 5 found court records showing that, in Harvey, he was put on paid leave for allegedly failing to inform the Harvey school board of a transfer of $3.8 million dollars of reserve funds.\u00a0Nohelty denied the charges, and the school board ultimately sided with him and reinstated his job.<\/p>\n
More recently, at Dolton, Nohelty\u2019s former second-in-command said in a whistleblower lawsuit that she was fired because she\u2019d \u201craised concerns \u2026 related to fiscal management [by Nohelty].\u201d\u00a0 That lawsuit is pending.\u00a0 Once again, Nohelty has denied all the allegations.<\/p>\n
Even with today\u2019s resignation, that whistleblower lawsuit will likely continue.\u00a0And although Nohelty\u2019s $537,197.31 salary is apparently no more, he will likely immediately be eligible for a state pension.\u00a0NBC 5 Investigates is filing a public records request to see how much Nohelty will continue to be paid, each year, in retirement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For years, Dr. Kevin J. Nohelty has been the highest-paid public school district superintendent in Illinois. He has…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":146783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,5386,1818,40983],"class_list":{"0":"post-146782","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-illinois","11":"tag-nbc-5-investigates"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115030681564191948","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}