ADAM ANDRZEJEWSKI MAY 26, 2016

Use the Open the Books app above to search data sets including the highest-paid Illinois state employees.

In Illinois politics, anything happens for the good of the people, it’s entirely by accident.  Public service has little to do with serving the public and everything to do with using the public’s money to serve politicians.

In a recent look at government salaries at Forbes, we discovered a new ‘minimum wage’ of $100,000 for 50,000 Illinois public employees costing taxpayers $8.0 billion per year.

We found nearly 9,000 state employees, 5,000 City of Chicago employees, and nearly 2,000 Cook County employees earning more than six-figures per year. We also discovered park district managers out earning the state director of parks; school treasurers out-earning the state treasurer; 72 small-town ‘managers’ out-earning every governor of the 50 states; and an University of Illinois at Chicago doctor making $1.3 million as the highest paid public employee.

Illinois’ largest ‘Big Dog’ pay and pension systems conferring $100,000 public salaries

Illinois, like many states, is in trouble. Data and analysis at OpenTheBooks.com show that Illinois has 1 million public employees either active (650,000) or retired (350,000 receiving a pension check). Yet, there’s only 6.2 million total jobs. Therefore, roughly one of every six ‘paychecks’ goes to a government employee or retiree.

So who are the highly compensated public employees in your hometown and neighborhood across Illinois? Using our interactive mapping tool, you can quickly review the public employees across Illinois who earn more than $100,000.