Amazingly, Illinois voters have actually been paying attention. From the Illinois Mirror:
Governor Bruce Rauner and House Speaker Michael Madigan have spent the better part of the last several weeks blaming each other for the state’s historic budget impasse. Capitol Fax’s Rich Miller conducted a poll that revealed who voters blame, and the results are unequivocal.
On Tuesday, June 7, Miller sent an email to Capitol Fax subscribers detailing the results of “a recent Capitol Fax/We Ask America poll†that were “particularly negative for anyone who can be credibly connected to House Speaker Michael Madigan.â€
The poll showed that voters overwhelmingly blame Speaker Madigan for the contentious budget impasse that has been plaguing the state for nearly a year.
The poll was of 1,231 registered Illinois voters and was taken June 5-6.
It remains to be seen whether that will have any consequences in November. And, of course, the only poll that really concerns Speaker Madigan is the one that takes place in his district and voters there show few signs of abandoning him.
If you’re wondering about the title to this post it’s a hat tip to Dr. Johnson who remarked that having been sentenced to death in a fortnight tends to concentrate the mind.
This mess is apparently what the good citizens of Illinois want, or they’d end it.
Saw an article over the weekend ascribing a very small portion of “highly compensated” administrators and teachers to a billion dollars of the pension deficit. The article went on to note that the numbers would triple in 3 years and quadruple by 2022. Those numbers are simply not addressable by tax increases or doable benefit cuts.
Road geek: I don’t know. Want and being innumerate are different things.
End it how other than by taking up arms and running the rascals out of town? Keep in mind that 85% of Illinois politicians run unopposed.
When they elected these jerks they didn’t elect them to do nothing which is essentially what they’ve done. And Madigan doesn’t answer to the people of Illinois. Just to the people of his district.
One of the things that Illinois needs to do is to abolish double-dipping even if we have to amend the constitution to do it. It’s a big problem. And it doesn’t take a lot of coaches and university chancellors who earn $1 million a year and retire on 75% of exit salary to account for $1 billion.
Heh. This wasn’t even the coaches etc, which is a separate pet peeve. Garden variety teachers and admins.
How many people commenting on this blog site have pensions well into six figures, Florida homes and travel the world? I know two people at my country club. Both teachers. (Let that all sink in). Wonderful people. But not sustainable.
Oh, one taught Phys Ed.
I’ll let you guess their political leanings.
In that case I’m not sure I believe it. I guess that it depends on what you consider a “small portion”. Consider New Trier Township. That’s a pretty well-compensated district. Superintendant earns $336,000 per year. Principals $150,000-$180,000. Teachers $80,000 to $135,000. Let’s say an average of $150,000. .75*$150,000 = $112,500. $1 billion/$112,500 = 8,889. That’s not a small portion by my standard.
To get to a small portion I think you need double-dipping and university presidents and coaches.
The number they used was 7500.
And the overwhelming domicile was near Chicago.
Not summarized. But anyone desiring to get a flavor can peruse. It’s good to be a physed teacher. Maybe that’s where the coaches come in.
Not listed is someone no one could ever figure out did what. I’m not going to be so crass as to put a name to them. But “Dr XXXXX” who got her PhD from the mighty Governors State, made over $200k apparently to walk the halls and drop in on meetings from time to time. The best teacher my daughter had in middle school gave up public accounting to teach……….at $47k per year.
http://www.naperville203.org/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?moduleinstanceid=9883&dataid=8110&FileName=FY15%20Administrator%20%20Teacher%20Salary%20Report-Final%20for%20Web3%201%20Updated%209-28-15.pdf