by Will Compernolle According to our transparency website, IllinoisOpenGov.org, the State of Illinois paid 28 Liquor Control Special Agents $1,418,421 in fiscal year 2008. The chairman of the committee was paid a salary of $56,685.71. According to the Illinois Department of Central Management Services website, Liquor Control Special Agents are meant to “conduct field investigations concerned with the...

According to our transparency website, IllinoisOpenGov.org, the State of Illinois paid 30 fingerprint technicians $1,457,511.64 in fiscal year 2008 in combined total wages. The highest paid fingerprint technician was paid $52,494. According to the State of Illinois’s Central Management Services website, fingerprint technicians are meant to “perform functions related to the automated and manual processing of fingerprint submissions...

The Problem Illinois’s wealth of energy resources should be utilized to provide Illinois’s families and businesses with reliable sources of power. However, Illinois state government is unnecessarily picking winners and losers, distorting energy prices, and driving up overall government spending by awarding tax dollars to certain energy sectors via special government programs. For example, the...

by Kate Piercy As we argue in our Spotlight on Spending series, which aims to highlight wasteful or ineffective government spending in Illinois, looking at every type of spending, from smaller to bigger amounts, and asking “Is this the best use of taxpayers’ money,” does matter. David Vaught, state budget director for Illinois, also recognizes the importance...

by Will Compernolle The Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) gave a $400,000 grant (#05-02206) in fiscal year 2005 to Solargenix Energy LLC to “provide solar thermal collectors to be installed on a meat packing factory roof.” According to the DCEO’s grant tracker, the grant is part of the Renewable Energy Resources Program, meant “to encourage utilization...

During a time when the Gulf oil disaster and the ever-increasing and mind-numbing federal debt are (rightly) dominating the news, it is easy to forget about the overwhelming fiscal challenges facing our own state government.