(The Center Square) – More than 140,000 Illinois government-sector workers and retirees received more than $100,000 in compensation in 2023, according to a new report from Wirepoints.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski said Illinois residents are forced to pay the nation’s highest property taxes, and one of the highest tax burdens overall, to fund the $100,000-plus government salaries and pensions of the public sector. Dabrowski explained how taxpayers paying these large salaries for a growing number of government workers is unsustainable.
“The bigger the divide gets between the government sector, which has pension guarantees, the Constitutional protections of Amendment 1, guaranteed labor contracts, guaranteed raises … they get all that. The private sector doesn’t get any of those kinds of protections, and yet they have to pay higher and higher taxes to pay for the government class. We’re creating two classes of workers: one that’s protected and one that’s not,” said Dabrowski.
Dabrowski said public school superintendents have the biggest share of the taxpayer funded pie. According to Wirepoints, there are 56,000 teachers and administrators in Illinois schools who are getting a pension or salary over $100,000.
“Kevin Nohelty, the current superintendent of Dolton SD 148, receives almost a half million a year to run a school district where just 14% of students can read at grade level. Those big, big salaries turn into big, big pensions. You’ve got Lawrence Wyllie of Lincoln-Way and his pension is almost $400,000,” said Dabrowski.
Open the Books counted 94,000 government members with $100K compensation back in 2018, and in 2023 more than 140,000 Illinois government-sector workers and retirees received more than $100,000 in compensation in 2023, that’s a 50% increase.
Dabrowski said there is a problem, recently and nationally, where more and more Americans are saying, ‘if you can’t beat them [the public sector] join them,’ but Dabrowski said the bigger problem is the tax burden for Illinoisans paying large salaries for government workers.
“People are saying, ‘I can’t afford this. I am leaving the state.’ This is why you’re seeing cities around the state suffer from population loss. If you can’t make it here and if it’s too expensive here…and there’s too much government, then you have to go to a state with less government and more opportunity,” said Dabrowski.
Dabrowski said it’s not the fault of the public sector employees for negotiating high salaries but lawmakers are at fault because they approve public sector employee benefits at a price that ordinary Illinoisans can’t afford.
“Peter Murphy, President and CEO of Illinois’ Association of Park Districts made nearly $468,000. It’s not fair and it’s not right to ask ordinary people to pay that kind of salary and eventually those kinds of pensions to people. It’s going to create such a big divide between the public sector and private sector and eventually people will leave,” said Dabrowski.
Dabrowski said most job creation is from government jobs and he said Illinois will suffer if the government continues to use taxpayer money to pay big salaries in the public sector.
