Commentary: Why Illinois Is in Trouble – High Paid Public Employees Cost Taxpayers $17 Billion
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Commentary by Adam Andrzejewski originally published by RealClearPolicy.com and RealClearWire.com
There are 132,188 public employees and retirees in Illinois who earned $100,000 or more last year.
Auditors at OpenTheBooks.com found almost 500 educators in Illinois public schools had salaries between $200,000 and $439,000. Small-towns city managers made up to $341,300, and three doctors at the University of Illinois at Chicago earned between $1 million and $2.1 million.
This is as crime increases, test scores drop among public school students, and inflation decimates private-sector paychecks. This doesn’t stop the Illinois public employee class from living the good life.
Well-paid barbers working for State Corrections trimmed off $104,000, janitors at the Chicago Transit Authority cleaned up with $143,634 paychecks, bus drivers in Chicago picked up $242,812 in pay, and suburban community college presidents made $418,677, we found from payroll data.
In 2021, 26,904 educators earned six-figure salaries, while 16,592 retirees pocketed $100,000 pensions. That’s as test scores dropped, with only 31 percent of students reading at grade level. There were 18 school superintendents who made $300,000, and another 18 retired school superintendents received $300,000 in retirement pensions.
Crime is out of control in Chicago not because police and fire employees are underpaid but because of political will. The Chicago police and fire departments paid 600 employees between $200,000 and $480,000 last year. There were 41 street light repair workers who made between $100,000 and $196,123, and 61 city sign painters, who made up to $145,341.
The boss at the city auto pound collected $124,783 in pay, while the janitors there made six-figures too, up to $125,783. In Chicago Public Schools, then-CEO Janice K. Jackson served until June 30, 2021, and made $361,762 — $298,923 in salary with $62,839 in benefits.
Her salary alone exceeded the pay of the U.S. Secretary of Education — $203,500.
The high pay wasn’t tied to student achievement, because student scores dropped. Just 26 percent of 11th-grade students perform at grade level in math and 70 percent of students could not read at grade level.
There are plenty more examples of the reckless use of taxpayer dollars with no consideration given to job performance.
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Adam Andrzejewski – The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com
This article was originally published by RealClearPolicy and made available via RealClearWire.
