Illinois home care, child care workers to get overdue raises
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) - More than 40,000 employees of the Illinois Department of Human Services who provide senior care in the home and child care services will get long-overdue salary increases.
SEIU Healthcare Illinois and Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced an agreement Monday to implement the rate increases and provide back pay. There's $29 million in an escrow account for the back pay.
About 28,000 personal assistants in the Human Services' home care program were scheduled to receive a 48-cent raise in August 2017. Last year's state budget includes a 4.26 percent rate increase for 14,000 workers in the child-care program. Neither had been paid by the prior administration.
Pritzker's office says the rate increase will take effect April 1. It says back pay should be distributed by fall.