By AARON MUELLER
Niles Daily Star

The Niles Community Schools Board of Education approved a contract for newly selected superintendent Richard Weigel at Monday night’s meeting.

The terms of the contract are that Weigel will start on April 19 at a salary of $125,000, the minimum on the job posting. Current superintendent Doug Law’s salary is $127,000. Weigel’s start date comes about two months before the board’s original goal.

Weigel is currently the assistant superintendent at Ypsilanti Public Schools. In his career, he also has served as executive director of educational services at Ypsilanti Public Schools, director of curriculum, instruction and technology at Mason Consolidated Schools and co-principal at Pinckney High School.

Weigel inherits a district in need of making drastic cuts. Law, who will retire at the end of the school year, announced recently the school needs to cut between $2.7 and $3 million in the coming year’s budget.

The board took steps toward balancing that budget Monday night by laying off two administrators. Gretchen Hart, assistant principal at Howard-Ellis Elementary, and Chris Porter, assistant principal at Niles High School, will both be laid off next school year for financial reasons. Law estimates it will save the district about $210,000 next year.