SPRINGFIELD - For right now, Illinois state employees are drawing normal pay via court decrees and part-time state lawmakers are not only getting paid, their paychecks are two percent higher than they were in June–despite the governor’s veto.
“Last Thursday, a St. Clair County circuit judge granted our request to pay state employees in order to comply with the Federal Labor Standards Act,” State Comptroller Leslie Munger said on WGN Radio July 15th. “That’s a good thing, because we would subject the state to triple fines on a payroll that we would miss.”
That St. Clair County court ruled that interrupting state employees’ pay would have contradicted the state’s constitutional compensation protection.
That judges ruling lined up with an appellate court in northern Illinois that overruled a lower Cook County court to say that as State Comptroller Leslie Munger argued, the state’s accounting system was so antiquated, it could not designate which state employees were covered by federal law. Therefore, the judge ruled, all state employees had to be paid their normal salaries.
So while state workers being paid during the budget stalemate was a small victory for Munger and Governor Bruce Rauner, a two-percent pay hike for state lawmakers that the governor could not stop dampened the celebration.
“If they’re going to take a one thousand, three hundred dollar pay hike for part time work, they should start earning that pay hike by meeting with us and getting reforms to our government so we can grow our economy, get value for our taxpayers, and get a truly constitutional balanced budget,” Governor Rauner told reporters in front of his Capitol office.
Democrat House Speaker Madigan – who also chairs the Illinois Democrat Party – refused to address with reporters the issue of state lawmaker pay hikes, but led the way for lawmaker raises to become law.
The Governor issued his Amendatory Veto on the pay hike July 1. The General Assembly had until July 15 to take action. If they took action and accepted Rauner’s veto, it would have frozen the automatic two percent cost of living (COLA) pay raise.
Speaker Madigan’s Illinois House took no action, which killed the bill, but allowed the General Assembly to take the COLA.
One state lawmaker voiced outrage with the Democrats’ maneuver to put the raise into effect and vowed to send his two percent to a charity.
“I think it is outrageous that we as legislators are getting a pay raise even though we are not down in Springfield every single day doing our job to get a budget passed,” said Rep. David McSweeney (R-South Barrington). “We should be down there every day working to resolve the budget crisis. People are going to get hurt if we don’t do our job and pass a budget soon.”
Despite the rhetoric, three weeks in Illinois’ 2016 fiscal year, state government is in disarray, public services are being threatened, and there’s still no agreed upon budget in sight.
House Speaker Mike Madigan scoffed at Governor Rauner’s insistence that the General Assembly consider reforms to the state workers’ compensation and lawsuit system as “extreme” and irrelevant “non-budget items.”
“The governor’s advocacy of non-budget issues, and the use of diversionary tactics runs against the beliefs of Democrats and Republicans because Democrats and Republicans do not want to reduce base level or the standard of living for middle-class families,” Madigan declared at a press conference this week.
But Illinois’ fiscal problems are deep and severe. According to recent George Mason University study ranking the fiscal condition of the fifty states, Illinois came in dead last, 50 out of 50.
State Rep. Peter Breen (R-Lombard) vented his frustration over the budget stalemate in an op-ed posted Thursday on Illinois Review. He said what the governor is proposing for Illinois is neither radical nor extreme, as Speaker Madigan insists.
“[Governor Rauner’s] proposing measures to reduce the costs of doing business in Illinois, and to streamline and reform all levels of state and local government,” Breen wrote.
“He’s also put forward term limits and ending the partisan process of drawing political districts, in hopes of finally and permanently breaking the power of career politicians to control state government.”
Breen called for a public debate over what is best for Illinois.
“The sad reality is that the Governor’s reform measures are drafted, filed, and pending in the House Rules Committee, waiting to be released,” Breen said.
“However, Speaker Madigan and his majority caucus won’t allow these measures to be debated. And so, we’re shut down. And mired in crisis.
“Let’s have the debate, and out of that debate will come compromise. If not, then let the people vote out those who refuse to work for their best interests.”
This article was written by Fran Eaton and Dennis LaComb, contributors of Watchdog Arena, Franklin Center’s network of writers, bloggers, and citizen journalists. Used by permission.
