The state of Illinois is effectively broke and the reason is fairly obvious. Like the financially destroyed nation of Greece, there are too many people working for the government while drawing massive salaries and pensions.
Forbes reports:
‘Minimum Wage’ Of $100,000+ For 50,000 Highly-Compensated Illinois Public Employees Costs Taxpayers $8 Billion
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. Whenever we open the books, Illinois is consistently among the worst offenders. Recently we found Cook County animal control officers making $105,000; suburban school administrators at $503,000; university doctors earning $1.3 million; and 72 small-town ‘managers’ out-earning every governor of the 50 states.
This week, Governor Bruce Rauner (R) told the state public employee union AFSME, “Illinois is broke.” Our data and analysis at OpenTheBooks.com shows he’s right. There are 50,000 public employees earning six-figure salaries who cost Illinois taxpayers $8 billion a year.
Using our interactive mapping tool, you can quickly review the public employees across Illinois who earn more than $100,000.
Here are a few examples of what you’ll uncover by zip code:
- 18,900 teachers and school administrators – including $503,200 for Mohsin Dada, an administrator at North Shore School District 112 who earned $248,510 salary, plus a teacher’s retirement pension of $254,700 (ZIP – 60035).
- 9,000 college and university employees – including Dr. Fady Toufic Charbel at the University of Illinois at Chicago who earned $1.38 million (ZIP – 60601).
- 8,838 State of Illinois employees – including Steven Valasek, a $218,519 ‘contractual worker’ employed by Illinois Comptroller Leslie Munger (R) (ZIP – 62704).
- 5,122 small-town city and village employees – including 72 municipal managers who out-earn every governor of the 50 states at $180,000 per year.
- 5,007 City of Chicago rank-and-file managers and workers – including $216,000 for embattled Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D).
In total, there’s roughly $9.3 billion in total compensation flowing to highly-compensated government workers when counting 7,637 federal employees based in Illinois with six-figure salaries.
Something that can’t go on forever, will not.
How long will it be before the state of Illinois seeks a bailout from American taxpayers?
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