Furlough legislation not strong enough

Your editorial in the March 11 edition that discussed the reduction of pay for state legislators was misleading. The pay reduction comments were most likely grounded in news releases, which manipulate the nuance of “pay” versus “salary.” Saying that pay was reduced is not the same thing as saying salary was cut.

Yes, the Illinois Senate voted to reduce take-home pay of legislators through furlough days, and the Illinois House will certainly vote to do the same. This action simply continues a practice that has been in place for the past three years.

However, the legislation you lauded will not reduce legislators’ salaries. The salary of an Illinois state legislator is $67,836, the fifth-highest in the country, and it will be $67,836 after the legislation passes and is signed into law. Your editorial ignores the fact that the legislation specifically states the change “is not considered a change in salary and shall not impact pension or other benefits.”

The legislation mandates that legislators take one furlough day a month. The furlough days do reduce take-home pay, but they do not reduce salary. Salary is used to compute pension benefits, so the reduction does nothing to help solve our state’s pension problems.

If we wanted true long-term savings, then legislators’ salaries should be cut 10 percent. And we should cut the salaries of all other state employees as well. That would result in savings of more than $200 million.

Now that would be real and meaningful savings to the taxpayers of Illinois.

State Rep. David Harris

53rd District

Mount Prospect