Editorial: By signing Truth in Hiring law, Rauner can give boost to transparency

The original editorial had an incorrect date for when Truth in Hiring was passed by the state House.

We're counting on Gov. Bruce Rauner to sign the Truth in Hiring bill by Tuesday's deadline, making it state law that governors must pay their staff payroll from their own budgets.

Initiated by Comptroller Susana Mendoza, who argues it is time to end a long-running practice of Illinois governors "hiding" many of their staff salaries in other departments' budgets, the legislation received overwhelming support in both the House and state Senate. So, a veto of this sensible law could be easily overridden.

The governor could, of course, sit on his hands and let the bill become law by default after July 31. But he has never done that, and choosing that path now would let slip an opportunity to demonstrate a commitment from the top to sound, fair and open business practices in Illinois.

The act of paying staff out of other departmental budgets, referred to as "offshoring," allows governors to add to their staffs without the office's budget showing the effects.

According to Mendoza, at the time she proposed Truth in Hiring last April, the salaries of more than half of Rauner's employees were assigned to agencies they didn't work for. For example, Beth Purvis, Rauner's former $250,000-a-year education czar (who has since left government for a nonprofit) was being paid out of the Department of Human Services.

Currently, of the 110 employees in the governor's office, 47 are on the governor's budget, while 63 are "offshored" to other state agencies.

This creates problems for the Illinois departments whose budgets are being hijacked. State agencies are scrapping for every dollar they can get, and the governor must run his or her office without dipping into the funds allotted to other important state work.

But more than a financial issue, this is a truth-in-government issue. The Illinois public has a right to know how much money is being spent on the governor's office, who the employees are and what they are hired to do. We have a right to be told when the governor's payroll far exceeds his or her budget.

This is not a partisan issue, and the state legislature hasn't treated it like one. On April 19, Truth in Hiring passed the House 110-0 and on May 3 the Senate passed it 46-7.

The governor should sign the bill in full recognition that the shell game it prohibits is not a transparent way to run the highest office in the state.

Certainly, as he wields his pen over the document, he would be fully within his rights to point out that a lot of other governors have done the same thing, from George Ryan to Rod Blagojevich to Pat Quinn.

But Rauner could, and should, get the ultimate credit for saying, it stops here, with me.