*** UPDATE *** As a commenter points out, the Illinois Policy Institute director John Tillman made $261,764 in salary and another $23,915 in benefits three years ago.
Frankly, I don’t really care how much Tillman makes. I make a decent buck myself, but, hey, I’m in the private sector.
The IEA is a huge organization, while Tillman’s is quite small, so using generally accepted market principles it would stand to reason that IEA President Cinda Klickna would make more than Tillman. But that isn’t the case, unless Tillman has taken a recent pay cut. So, I’m not sure where his beef is. Also, check out his overhead. Whew.
[ *** End Of Update *** ]
* The Illinois Policy Institute has long bashed public employee unions and has pushed for “right to work” legislation. Yesterday, the group unveiled a new report…
“The anatomy of influence: Government unions in Illinois” takes a close look at unions’ political spending and the influence afforded to government unions as a result. This analysis offers an unprecedented review of the political donations to the current Illinois General Assembly, as well as top recipients of union political giving since 2002. It also highlights how profitable the business of forced unionization can be for those who run the unions by listing a sampling of the highest-compensated employees for the state’s major government unions: the Illinois Education Association; Illinois Federation of Teachers; American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31; and Service Employees International Union.
This book also reports how unions spend the money collected from mandatory dues, according to the unions’ own filings with the federal government. In the state’s largest teachers union, the Illinois Education Association or IEA, only 26 cents out of every $1 in union dues is actually spent on the union’s stated reason for existence: representation of workers. The rest of the union’s dues and fees revenue went mainly toward overhead, administration and political activities. Other unions also fail to spend the majority of dues money on actual representation – which is supposed to be unions’ key function. At both the IEA and the Illinois Federation of Teachers or IFT, the top 20 highest-paid employees all are paid salaries of more than $100,000 annually. Cinda Klickna, head of the IEA, pulls in $235,404 annually.
In addition to salaries, money spent on politics makes up another big chunk of union spending. The Illinois Policy Institute reviewed campaign-finance reports from 2002 to 2014 and found the five major government unions in Illinois spent a combined $46 million in political campaigns in that time. That number offers just a glimpse of union political spending, as it does not include donations by local chapters of government unions.
While the vast majority of government-union political spending goes to Democrats, the review of campaign spending since 2002 showed that Republicans received nearly 17 percent of the unions’ campaign spending during that time. Former Gov. Pat Quinn, a Democrat, sat atop the heap, with $11.1 million in union donations, including nearly $8 million from the Service Employees International Union.
* Now that Gov. Rauner has opened the “debate” over right to work, the Institute will attempt to muddy up the unions by using their own financial disclosures. For instance…
In 2014, the IEA spent $692,203 on hotels and $213,118 on consultants.
The union often sends staff into the field to assist locals, and there’s plenty more cherry picking. The IFT…
• Representation takes up about 60 cents of every $1 of IFT union dues, with 22 cents spent on administration, 12 cents spent on overhead and 6 cents spent on political activities.
• In 2013, the union spent $348,958 on hotels, $104,886 on consultants and $195,854 on attorneys.
* AFSCME…
• AFSCME spent 51 cents of every $1 in union dues on representation, 28 cents on overhead, 13 cents on administration and 5 cents on political activities.
• In 2013, the union spent $463,943 on hotels, $107,059 on consultants and $654,295 on attorneys.
• In 2013, AFSCME reported spending $31,972 at its “holiday party” for staff and directors. The spending included hotels rooms and other party expenses.
* SEIU…
• The main SEIU locals combined spent 60 cents of every $1 on representation, 23 cents on overhead, 9 cents on political activities and 6 cents on administration.
• In 2013, SEIU Healthcare spent $533,218 on hotels, $330,637 on restaurants and catering, $345,030 on airlines, $312,687 on rental cars
and $838,417 on consultants.
• SEIU Healthcare spent $49,619 on its “membership” Christmas party in December 2013. Among other Christmas party expenses, catering cost $34,556 and the tab at Binny’s Beverage, a liquor store, amounted to $6,063, lower than the $6,859 tab for its party the year before.
• SEIU Healthcare spent $7,523 for floral arrangers at an event in 2013. The year before, it spent $6,859 on Christmas decorations for the office.
Etc.
