USD 116 will pay $200,000 to settle age discrimination suit

Jana Wiersema, The News-Gazette, Champaign-Urbana, Ill.
·4 min read

Apr. 25—URBANA — In 2017, 52-year-old middle school teacher Chuck Koplinski filed a discrimination charge against Urbana School District 116 with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alleging that his salary was lower than what it should have been based on the district's salary scale.

The EEOC then filed an age discrimination lawsuit against the school district and teachers' union on Koplinski's behalf in 2018.

Now, after six years, the school district has agreed to a settlement and will pay a total of $206,301 to Koplinski and other affected teachers, EEOC officials announced.

"I'm glad that it was reached," Koplinski said. "I think that it's more than fair. It took far too long; it's been six years in the making. But I think finally a fair settlement was reached."

U.S. District Court Judge Sue Myerscough issued an order and opinion in the case in November. Myerscough found that the school district violated the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) between 2014 and 2020 by capping the salaries of teachers over 45 to avoid pension contribution surcharges.

She also found that the district was liable for a total of $51,093 in back base pay and supplemental pay for about 30 teachers.

Both the EEOC and the school district have confirmed that this amount is included within the $206,301 settlement.

The school district does not have any additional comment on the matter, said USD 116 Director of Communications and Marketing Katherine Tellez.

The EEOC's complaint alleged that the Urbana school district violated the ADEA by limiting raises for many teachers over age 45 and all teachers over 50. The agency also alleged that these teachers' supplemental pay was limited.

EEOC officials said the agency's lawsuit challenged a provision of the collective bargaining agreement that limited raises for teachers who are within 10 years of retirement eligibility to no more than 6 percent.

In 2005, Illinois legislators updated state law in an attempt to address the practice of making teacher pensions larger by increasing salaries prior to retirement.

"The Illinois state pension code provides that if a teacher's final average salary for purposes of calculating pension benefits includes a year in which the teacher received a salary increase of more than 6%, the school district must contribute to the Teacher's Retirement System to cover the increased pension cost attributable to the salary increase over 6%," EEOC officials explained.

Following the change in state law, the Urbana school district included a 6 percent cap on teachers' total annual earnings in its 2007 contract with the Urbana Education Association, and the same provision was included in the parties' next contract in 2012.

In 2014, the provision requiring school districts to pay a surcharge to the pension fund on salary increases over 6 percent began to apply to all teachers, not just those nearing retirement. However, Myerscough found that the school district did not update its contract to reflect the change.

Myerscough ordered the district to reimburse 32 impacted teachers for lost wages, the EEOC said. However, the agency also sought additional wages for some of the same teachers and others not included in the summary judgment decision.

"The settlement eliminates the need for a trial on additional damages and provides monetary relief to 40 teachers who lost wages between 2015 and 2020 because of the collective bargaining agreement provision," EEOC officials said. "The district and union agreed to a collective bargaining agreement that eliminated the discriminatory compensation provision starting with the 2020-21 school year."

The court approved a consent decree resolving the suit on April 17, the agency said. In addition to the payments for teachers, the three-year decree also prohibits the district from limiting teachers' ability to earn raises due to age and prohibits retaliation against anyone who participated in the case or complained of age discrimination.

"This suit should serve as a lesson to Illinois school districts that they cannot try to limit TRS (Teachers' Retirement System) contributions by capping salary increases for older teachers based on their age," said Gregory Gochanour, regional attorney for the EEOC's Chicago District Office. "Federal law prohibits paying teachers over and under the age of 40 differently based on age, just as it prohibits paying women less (than) men or paying workers differently based on race or national origin."