Pay raise for state officials
Effort to block 10 percent boost fails in Senate
Friday, November 17, 2006
SPRINGFIELD - With no fear of election repercussions, the Illinois Senate voted Thursday to accept a Compensation Review Board report giving state lawmakers and top government officials cost-of-living pay raises of nearly 10 percent.Two other cost of living increases are still on the Legislature's agenda, meaning that if lawmakers choose to budget money for them, their total salary increase would amount to 15.6 percent.
"It's simply a cost of living," Sen. Rickey Hendon, D-Chicago, said of the 10 percent raises approved by the Senate. "This is nothing. We are not asking for a ridiculous amount. We are underpaid."
State lawmakers earn a base salary of $57,619 a year. The cost-of-living adjustments recommended by the pay board will boost that to $63,143. If lawmakers approve money for the other two COLAs, their base pay would be $66,597 annually.
They last received a raise in 2001.
Most lawmakers earn additional money - ranging from $8,771 to $23,338 - for serving as committee chairmen or in leadership positions. Those stipends will also increase. Lawmakers also collect $125 in daily expense money when they are in session in Springfield.
"Just because we are elected officials, it's not fair to come to work every day and then not be able to expect adequate compensation," said Sen. James Meeks, D-Chicago. "There's not one of our constituents that don't want a cost of living. Our own constituents will definitely understand that we need our cost of living."
The Compensation Review Board recommends salaries for about 1,200 public officials, including lawmakers, the governor and other statewide elected officials, judges and top state agency officials. Earlier this year, the board recommended that those officials take COLAs for the 2003, 2004, and 2005 state budget years that lawmakers previously rejected.
The COLA was 3.8 percent in 2003, 2.8 percent in 2004 and 2.7 percent in 2005. Compounded, those COLAs will boost salaries by 9.6 percent.
Review board recommendations take effect automatically unless both the House and Senate vote to reject them. The House voted last spring against the raises, but on Thursday, the Senate fell five votes short of doing so.
Money for the raises was not included in the state budget passed last spring, and Comptroller Dan Hynes' office said it will not issue checks containing the raises until lawmakers approve money for them. However, Senate President Emil Jones, D-Chicago, said he will ask lawmakers to approve a supplemental budget that includes about $4 million for the raises recommended by the Compensation Review Board.
Lawmakers and others covered by the Compensation Review Board also were supposed to get automatic COLAs of 2.2 percent on July 1, 2005, and 3.2 percent on July 1 of this year. Lawmakers didn't reject those raises, but haven't budgeted money for them, either. Jones spokeswoman Cindy Davidsmeyer said no decision has been made whether to ask for money for the 2005 and 2006 COLAs.
Gov. Rod Blagojevich will not accept any pay raise, said spokeswoman Rebecca Rausch. Blagojevich makes $150,691 now. If he accepted the raises, his salary would increase to $165,138.
Blagojevich could veto a supplemental budget bill containing money for the raises. Rausch said no decision has been made about doing that.
Sen. George Shadid, D-Peoria, was the only central Illinois senator to vote for the raises.
"We haven't had a pay raise in four or five years. I think we're entitled to it," said Shadid, who will retire from the legislature in January.
Although Shadid won't collect a higher salary, his pension will still be based on the salaries approved Thursday.
Sen. Dale Risinger, R-Peoria, said it is unfair for lawmakers to make more money when 9,000 nonunion state employees have gotten only one raise in four years. That 4 percent raise only offset an increase in their state pension contributions.
"We have professional people in this government working right now who have not had a cost of living raise in four years," Risinger said. "I cannot go back and look in the eyes of other people in this government that are doing a heck of a job, working hard and saying, 'I got mine, but you can't get yours.'"