Illinois House Democrats working in the Lame Duck Session left town for a weekend getaway on Friday night, but not before voting on a plan to raise wages by nearly 16%.
Legislation authorizing additional funds for required spending midway through the state’s fiscal year includes an increase in base salary from $11,655 to $85,000.
It was approved by the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives by a vote of 63 to 35. Twenty members did not vote as many had already left for the weekend. The lame duck session ends on Tuesday, the day before the 103rd General Assembly is sworn in.
A 15.9% price increase is unprecedented these days. A 2019 Secretive House action inserted a 2.4% cost-of-living adjustment to raise the base salary to about $67,800.
This was the first price increase since 2008. Since then, lawmakers have approved an automatic cost-of-living adjustment for 2021 and he will have a price increase in 2022, with the next price increase coming his July 1, said Republican Congressman Mark Batty of Chicago’s southwestern suburb of Plainfield. Nick said. .
“Wages haven’t kept up with inflation, but they have kept inflation rising every July. I assure you,” Vatinick, who is retiring from the House of Representatives, told the Associated Press after the vote.
Starting at the 103rd General Assembly on Wednesday, the legislative base will be $85,000, but most members will earn more than that. The minimum is $12,000 for him as chairman of a committee and $16,000 for him as speaker of the House, the speaker of the Senate, and minority leaders in each house.
Action came quickly as the House reopened after a long recess on Friday. House Majority Leader Greg Harris, a Chicago Democrat who endorsed what is known as the Budget Implementation Act, adopted the bill in place of a Senate bill ready for action in the House. As such, no committee hearings or other disclosures were necessary.
The process seems to contradict the open and transparent legislative business plan House Speaker Emmanuel “Chris” Welch promised when he took over from the disgraced Michael Madigan more than two years ago.
Welch’s spokeswoman, Jacqueline Driscoll, was outraged at the suggestion.
“You can’t get a more transparent vote in the House of Representatives than a public ballot,” Driscoll said.
The measures include the necessary additions to the budget and some previously pledged additions, such as $850 million for the so-called Rainy Days Fund. With $460 million to support state hospitals and $400 million to attract business to the state, by eliminating the state that bears some of the administrative costs and instead sending all of it to the children. , changes the distribution of child support.
“This bill literally never saw the light of day,” said Vatinick, the Republican House leader, during the debate, who wants a say in the bill that would allow him to speak for them. “The public may think they won’t notice. It seems like they’re doing their best to make it happen that way. But they’ll notice.”
It also includes salary increases for all constitutional officers and most directors of the agency under Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker.
