Rockford Sun

Rockford community activist Kathie Hansen marvels at how quickly Gov. J.B. Pritzker has turned his back on middle- and working-class voters.

“He cares much more about politically connected people,” Hansen told the Rockford Sun. “He doesn’t seem to care about the taxpayer at all. If he did, he would be trying to raise us up by allowing us to keep more of our money so we can invest it ourselves rather than becoming slaves to the state.”

Hansen points to Pritzker’s purported handling of contract negotiations with state workers belonging to the powerful American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council as a prime example of the governor's skewed priorities. Several media outlets have reported that the governor is poised to offer pay raises, more time off work, enhanced family leave and a one-time cash stipend of $2,500 to qualifying workers in his effort to end a four-year stalemate between the two sides. 

Gov. J.B. Pritzker

The annual pay hikes of roughly 2.7 percent are set to kick in on January 1, 2020 and run through July 1, 2022, by which time the salary of the average state employee is expected to have risen by more than $7,000 to nearly $67,000.

“In giving these people pay raises, he has to come up with the money from somewhere,” Hansen said. “We are a state that’s at junk point status. We are far, far in debt already. In the last budget, he claimed it was budgeted and it came out later that was a lie. It looks like that is going to happen again, and who’s going to get hit will be us middle-class people. We’ve got a ton of taxes coming at us.”

If ratified by members, the contract would be the first for AFSCME workers in over four years. Wirepoints reports that Illinois state workers were the second highest paid in the country with some retirees earning pensions of nearly $2 million.

Few others in the state can count on such security, Hansen said.

“We need to be able to invest our own money and we’re not able to with these new taxes,” she said. “If a recession comes, were up the creek without a paddle because people don’t have money in their banks because they’re spending it all on taxes. It’s scary right now to live here in Illinois.

It has left Hansen leery about what may become of Illinois under Pritzker’s leadership.

“He’s just following the Madigan Machine and we’re getting farther and farther in debt with no reform,” she said. “If the state doesn’t know how to get rid of wasted expenditures, we're going to be in bankruptcy for sure and it will only take a moment to do that.”