© 2024 NPR Illinois
The Capital's Community & News Service
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Political Pay, Hiked Or Hijacked

flickr/dborman

As Illinois' $36-billion budget remains in limbo, the state's top political leaders have been focusing on a much smaller number: roughly $250,000 in spending. That's roughly how much Illinois is set to spend this year paying legislators a raise. Republicans and Democrats both say the focus over pay is a distraction, while at the same time denouncing each other for enabling what they claim to be excessive salaries.

Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner has consistently used his bully pulpit to try to pin Illinois' problems on the Democratic Speaker of the Illinois House. Tuesday was no different -- he started a press conference denouncing Speaker Michael Madigan for allowing legislators to take a pay hike amid a budget stalemate.

"If they're going to take a 1,300 pay increase for themselves for part-time work, they should start earning that pay hike by meeting with us and getting reforms to our government,"he said, right off the bat.

"Two points: number one, this is a diversion, where the governor it attempting to divert attention away from the solution to the problem of the budget deficit," Madigan said in response, at his own press conference later Tuesday afternoon. Madigan also says the budget the General Assembly passed -- and which Rauner then vetoed -- didn't actually appropriate any money to pay the cost of living increase.

The two-percent raise legislators are set to get would be their first since 2008.

COLAs are automatic under current law, as is the fact that they'll be paid whether or not Illinois has a budget.

Changes were made to the system after former Gov. Pat Quinn tried to withhold legislators' pay - which a court held unconstitutional.

How much legislators are paid has repeatedly come up in political fights.

Earlier this month, Sen. Dave Koehler, a Peoria Democrat, got visibly frustrated by the fixation on lawmakers' pay. A reporter had asked whether he'd be willing to forgo a paycheck, during a press conference called to elaborate on how poor, elderly, disabled and ill people will be affected by the lack of a budget.

Koehler said he would check with his wife about that financial decisions, then went on to say "but I'll tell you what, when we make that decision, I'm not going to put a press release out because that feeds right back into the political beast that is causing all this mess, you know. Let's get the politics aside of this. You know, here we stood and talked about the human suffering that's going on in our communities, and you want to make this about a political issue? How dare you, that's sheeping the thing."

Weeks later, as Illinois continues to have no budget, how much lawmakers are getting paid remains a focus.

On Tuesday, Democrats, who control the Illinois House, used a parliamentary maneuver to block a Republican bid to prevent this year's pay raise.

Republicans, like Rep. Mark Batinick of Plainfield, pressed to get it done. "This is a really easy thing to do," he said. "This should be a really easy thing for the body to accomplish. And if we can't do this easy thing, I don't know how we're going to do the hard things."

But Democrats say it's hypocritical for the GOP to make a fuss. The Rauner administration has repeatedly refused to appear before a House committee that's investing the salaries the governor is paying his top staff. Further, the Chicago Tribune revealed that Rauner's new state superintendent of schools was given a special, hidden pension stipend, in addition to his $225,000 salary.

"It really bothers me at a time that we're looking to reduce pensions on front line officers and firefighters and police officers and that's being talked about in this administration, while at the same time the ISBE is then increasing pension to white collar workers; I find it wrong," Rep. Jack Franks, D- Marengo, said. "I find it ... the irony is rich."

Rauner has called his recruits "superstars." He says it's Democrats who are trying to use pay as a diversion.

"This is all a distraction to try to make people look bad or be embarrassed or whatever," he said. "I'm proud of our team. We've got the best team ever assembled to lead a state government and turn a state government around. Some of them are very well paid. They're taking cuts from what they could get in the private sector -- some of them major cuts from what they get in the private sector -- but they're willing to serve."

For his part, Rauner takes no salary from the state; the former private equity investor once said he's in the top ".01%" of earners, and spent tens of millions of dollars to become governor.

Some legislators -- from both sides of the aisle -- are forgoing paychecks while Illinois is in a budget stalemate. Many would also dispute the notion that it's part-time work; many do not have other jobs.

With the additional 2%, members of the Illinois General Assembly are due to make a base salary of about $69,000; those in leadership posts get an additional stipend. Legislators are not getting reimbursed for costs associated with traveling to the capital this summer, as they would during a regular session. 

Amanda Vinicky moved to Chicago Tonight on WTTW-TV PBS in 2017.
Related Stories