(Presuming "part of Nicalis" means "directly employed on a long-term basis by the company", rather than "directly employed by the company to work on one specific project".)
I don't think Chris Schlarb has any sort of long-term employment with Nicalis. (Like, being paid to work on soundtracks for future games to be published by Nicalis.) He stated in that IGN interview that he had been working with Nifflas before Nicalis expressed interest in Night Game, so Nicalis can't have hired him for the project. (I mean, hired after a publishing contract in order to work specifically on the project.)
The people working on the art for Cave Story would appear to be directly employed by Nicalis, but the work might also be contracted out. (Or some combination of these.)
The site was probably designed by a contracted web design company, or thrown together by someone already associated with Nicalis. I can't imagine a small games publishing company would need to hire a web designer for the long term.