 On Tuesday Quinn downplayed the fact that in the same budget he
handed out pay raises to some of his top staffers.An Associated
Press report indicates the governor's office rewarded a number of
top officials with pay increases. Budget director David Vaught, for
example, received a $24,000 raise to bring his salary to $144,000 a
year.
Quinn said Vaught has earned it.
"He got a new assignment, the budget director. It's one of the
most important jobs in state government. So it has a different
salary; yes, it has a higher salary. But overall, the amount of
money spent by taxpayers on the governor's office is significantly
lower today," Quinn said.
But Republican lawmakers say that's not what voters will or
should see. State Sen. Matt Murphy, R-Palatine, said the governor
needs to listen to his own words when he talks about tightening the
belt.
"People are hurting out there, and this is the kind of thing that
infuriates them. Not so much for the dollar amount but for the
example," he said.
The governor countered the criticism, saying his office has been
doing a lot more with a lot less. And Quinn said he doesn't think
it's fair to blast him as a spendthrift because some of his top
people saw their salaries go up.
"I think this person or that person (and) saying they got a raise
-- well, a lot of them got different assignments. They have more
challenging work to do. They had to replace someone who maybe left
government, and they have to take that job on that's maybe a
different job."
But the AP report says that as governor, Quinn handed out 43 pay
raises to 35 different people over the past 15 months. The average
raise, according to the AP, came in at 11.4 percent.
Murphy said Quinn has to answer for more than a year of spending.
"You've got service providers out there that are starving out
there, and you're giving out 20 percent raises? It's another
unfortunate example of an inability to lead," he said.
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A statement from Quinn's opponent in the November election, Bill
Brady, echoes Murphy's criticism.
Brady said, "Today's revelation shows there are two rules under
Gov. Pat Quinn -- one for him and the powerful insider crowd, and
another for all the rest of us. While working families are
tightening their belts and doing more with less, Pat Quinn is doling
out massive pay raises to his own staff -- and we're paying for
them. Today's revelation shows, once again, that Pat Quinn is
incapable of solving our fiscal crisis and has lost control of state
government."
But the governor is trying to flip that around and is using as
his springboard the announcement that lawmakers will not return to
Springfield to OK a pension borrowing plan until after the election.
"The General Assembly doesn't have a lot of fortitude when it
comes to raising revenue or making cuts. They've made that crystal
clear for two years. ... The General Assembly doesn't want to do
anything very challenging," Quinn said.
Murphy said the General Assembly did handle the budget
challenges, by giving Quinn extraordinary powers to manage the
state. Now he said Quinn needs to do it.
"The governor has substantially more power ... to manage the
funds of the state than any governor going back at least 25 years.
The bottom line is this is an opportunity for Gov. Quinn to show he
can manage the state's budget," said Murphy.
[Illinois
Statehouse News; By BENJAMIN YOUNT]
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