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 A new bill in the Illinois House of Representatives would close
a loophole that allows lawmakers to receive a full month’s pay for far less than
a full month’s work.
House Bill 4273, filed by state Rep. Sara Wojcicki Jimenez, R-Leland Grove,
would amend the General Assembly Compensation Act, which governs how and when
lawmakers are paid.
Under current law, members of the General Assembly who hold office at any point
during a given month are entitled to receive a full month’s pay, regardless of
when they actually took office. As the law stands, someone could be appointed to
fill a vacancy in the General Assembly on Jan. 31, for example, but still be
compensated as if he or she had been on the job for the entire month of January.
 HB 4273 would amend the law to read, “a member who has held office any part of a
month, but not for the entire month, is entitled to compensation only for those
days during that month that he or she held office.”
While the current law allows for an obvious abuse of taxpayer dollars, it should
come as little surprise in a state where lawmakers are generously compensated
for what is technically a part-time job.
Illinois lawmakers are the highest paid in the Midwest, and the fifth highest
paid in the nation, with General Assembly members making a baseline salary of
nearly $68,000. Lawmakers who serve as committee chairs are also entitled to
stipends of more than $10,000 a year.
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Lawmakers are also eligible for generous health
insurance, dental insurance, a per diem and pension benefits.
The lawmakers’ pension fund – called the General Assembly Retirement
System, or GARS – is the worst funded of Illinois’ state-run pension
systems, with less than 14 cents on hand for every dollar owed in
future benefits.
The result? Illinoisans pay 2.5 times for their lawmakers: once for
the lawmakers’ actual salaries and 1.5 times to bail out the
lawmakers’ pension plan.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Illinois lawmakers should show leadership in the state’s pension
crisis and abolish GARS immediately. In the meantime, General
Assembly members can voluntarily opt out of GARS. Nearly 40 state
representatives and 11 state senators have done so already.
If Illinois taxpayers are going to be asked to tighten their belts,
the same should go for Illinois lawmakers. Jimenez’s commonsense
reform should be embraced and paired with an end to the costly GARS
pension system.
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