Millions in local tax dollars going to pay lobbyists

Government officials from 47 entities taxing the West and Northwest suburbs spent nearly $2.5 million last year on outside lobbyists to influence state policy and spending, a watchdog agency says.

Citing a report his group released Tuesday, Illinois Campaign for Political Reform Deputy Director David Morrison says suburban residents need to know more about what governments are doing with their money and why they are hiring lobbyists.

"The public has a right to know and should know what these lobbyists are doing," said Morrison, who is himself a lobbyist. "There is plainly an awful lot going on."

Moreover, the amount spent on lobbying appears to be rising.

The reform campaign collected data for 2007 as well as 2008 for 37 of the West and Northwest suburban taxing entities and found the amount spent on outside lobbyists grew by about 15 percent, from $2 million to nearly $2.3 million.

The governmental bodies covered by the report range from local villages like Lake Barrington and Huntley to large agencies like the Illinois Tollway and Metra.

In all, the reform campaign obtained lobbying reports through open records laws from 115 taxing bodies statewide and found more than $6 million in spending on lobbyists.

The report argues for more disclosure requirements for lobbyists hired by companies and private individuals so that similar information would be available on them.

Generally, local governments or agencies pay lobbyists to convince lawmakers and state officials to provide them more tax dollars. They also attempt to influence state law and policies.

Hanover Park District spent $12,000 last year to hire a lobbyist to hunt down state grants.

Village President Jon Duesing said local lawmakers have paid little attention to the district's needs because it is split up among several legislative districts.

"We are just a little pebble in most of the districts that are there," Duesing said. "We have been trying to get attention from our legislators for many, many years."

Duesing said he is waiting until a state public works package is approved to see if the investment in lobbying will pay off.

"We are not doing this blindly," he said.

Attempts to change state law or dueling over state grants can cause a race to hire lobbyists by competing taxing bodies.

Take Harper College, which spent $126,000 in 2008 to both obtain state grants and push for a law allowing the community college to grant four-year bachelor's degrees. Harper spokesman Phil Burdick said the college needed to spend 50 percent more on lobbyists in 2008 than in 2007 to put up a fight against larger, better-financed opponents of its proposal.

Although they weren't specifically included in the group's report, he pointed to a litany of major state universities, higher education groups and private colleges that, combined, spend many hundreds of thousands of dollars on lobbyists to oppose Harper's proposal.

Southern Illinois University alone, for example, says it spends about $150,000 on lobbyists annually in addition to its in-house government relations staff.

Some of the biggest spending on lobbyists comes from larger agencies like PACE, which spent $162,000 in 2008, up from $133,800 the previous year.

PACE spokesman Patrick Wilmot said the increase in spending came because the legislature was considering public works spending and multiple pieces of legislation affecting the suburban bus agency. As one example of a success, Wilmot pointed to the repeal of a transit law last year relating to the disabled and to seniors. The law would have likely led to a fare increase.

"It is a small amount of money to invest in these services in order to receive the expertise of lobbyists, which has proved instrumental," Wilmot said.

Morrison says he sees nothing inherently wrong with using tax dollars to hire lobbyists. But he says that is something taxpayers should decide for themselves, especially when local officials can argue that a few thousand dollars spent on a lobbyist can turn into millions of dollars in state grants or a major policy change.

"That is the calculation that people have to make," Morrison said. "Maybe they do think it is worth it."

Spending on lobbyists

Here are the top 10 local governments that hired outside lobbyists last year in the West and Northwest suburbs

DuPage County Board

$91,785

DuPage County Board of Health $80,000

Kane County Board $77,667

Des Plaines $75,000

Aurora $71,024

Huntley $65,507

Cook County Board $65,000

Naperville $65,000

Schaumburg $60,000

Bartlett $52,500

Source: Illinois Campaign for Political Reform