Illinois home health care workers to get back pay this week

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) - More than 49,000 employees of the Illinois Department of Human Services who provide home health care will get long-overdue backpay this week.

Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza said Monday that her office will release the $30.7 million in back wages to the Department of Human Services to be issued Friday. SEIU Healthcare Illinois and Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced that they had reached a deal on the back pay and rate increases in March.

About 28,000 personal assistants in the agency's 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. Authorities said those increases were to take effect April 1.