Tens of thousands of public servants in Illinois have fleeced the public for billions in salaries that top their counterparts in other states.
“In Illinois, and many states, public service has little to do with serving the public and everything to do with using the public’s money to serve politicians,” Adam Andrzejewski wrote for Forbes.
Andrzejewski, the CEO of Open The Books, which tracks public spending, discovered that “there are 50,000 public employees earning six-figure salaries who cost Illinois taxpayers $8 billion a year.”
Double dipping that allows public workers to earn a salary and draw a pension, “spiking salaries” that push almost 49,000 state employees into six-figure salaries, and a lack of fiscal restraint have put a heavy tax burden on Illinoisans.
The fiscal burden goes beyond salaries, too.
As John Klingner noted for the Illinois Policy Institute, “Recently retired career state workers receive an average annual pension of $63,000. On top of this, more than 60,000 workers in Illinois’ State Employees’ Retirement System participate in Social Security.”
Pension benefits dwarf Social Security benefits in Illinois. If pension benefits were reduced to an equal level with Social Security, “taxpayers would be thrilled – this would save taxpayers billions and set government workers and the private sector on equal footing,” Klingner wrote.
Given the commanding heights of Illinois state salaries, it’s no surprise that other states can’t compare.
“Illinois state workers are the highest-paid state workers in the country when adjusted for cost of living,” Ted Dabrowski IPI’s vice president of policy, wrote.
With a population of almost 13 million, some state workers are bound to fetch six-figure salaries. Their existent isn’t unusual, nor is it criminal. What’s difficult to justify is the number of those workers.
In a state like Illinois, which has seen no net private job growth since 2000, state spending on that level verges on the economically dangerous. Public salaries, along with tax rates, creep higher, but the economy isn’t generating enough growth to fund them. It’s a great deal for the 72 city managers across the state who earn more than every American governor. For the Illinoisans they serve, though, the economic burden can only be supported for so long.
