ILLINOIS NEWS NETWORK

The University of Illinois’ latest request from taxpayers is almost $100 million more than last year, with most of the money earmarked for raises.

The university calls it a commitment to “strengthen academic quality.”

University leaders want to ask lawmakers for $98 million dollars more next year, so they can spend almost $70 million on raises. This year’s request is for $680 million compared to the $582 million requested last year.

Professors would get a lot of the new money, but not all of it, according to university spokesman Tom Hardy.

“Some of this has been identified as resources that can help us recruit and retain world class faculty members,” Hardy said. “But also it would support salary programs for other employees as well.”

Hardy says the U of I couldn’t offer raises two years ago, and has offered only 3 percent raises since.

Hardy says the school pays attention to the cost that students pay, but says without raises the U of I won’t be competitive for faculty and staff.

“The university is very sensitive to those issues about affordability and accessibility,” Hardy said. “Because one of the things that a lot of prospective students bring up as to why they didn’t attend the University of Illinois, is that high cost.”

Much of the explosion in the cost of a university degree in Illinois isn’t because of the costs in the classrooms. An Illinois Senate report in 2015 tracked the skyrocketing expansion of administrative costs at Illinois’ public universities.

Between 2005 and 2015, student enrollment at Illinois universities fell almost 3 percent, the cost for professors and faculty members increased by 2 percent, and the cost for university administrators jumped by over 26 percent.

During about the same time, more and more Illinois students left the state to attend college elsewhere because they could pay the same or less for a degree at the University of Missouri, the University of Wisconsin, Indiana University, and the University of Iowa than at the U of I.

The Illinois State Board of Higher Education said in 2014, a then all time high of 33,700 students, left Illinois to go to college somewhere else.

Hardy is quick to say however, that enrollment at the University of Illinois has held steady over the years. Other Illinois public universities have seen dramatic declines in their enrollment numbers.

Hardy said that the new U of I’s budget already includes about $60 million to help lure top-flight faculty members to the school. This new request, however, is outside of a $3 billion private fundraising goal that could also help boost pay for some university professors and researchers.

ILLINOIS NEWS NETWORK

With an entire year until the 2018 election for Illinois governor, instituting a progressive tax is already emerging as a battleground topic in the race.

In one of his newest campaign ads, Democratic gubernatorial candidate J.B. Pritzker highlights the benefits of taxing people who make more at a higher rate than those who don’t.

“As governor, I’ll fight to pass a progressive income tax,” he says in the ad. “It will make the wealthy pay more, support priorities like education, and reduce the tax burden on middle-class families.”

Pritzker’s Democrat challengers also have spoken out in favor of a progressive tax, also known as a graduated income tax.

Gov. Bruce Rauner opposes a progressive tax, calling it the last straw for overtaxed Illinoisans.

“Many more will leave that have already been leaving,” he said at an appearance in 2016. “There’s been an argument that says, ‘Let’s get higher income people to pay and then middle income people might not have to pay more.’ That’s baloney.”

His Republican challenger, state Rep. Jeanne Ives, also opposes a progressive tax.

To change from a flat tax to a progressive one, voters first must vote to amend the state’s constitution to allow it.

Battles over the progressive tax aren’t new. It was called a “Fair Tax” in 2014 when it failed.

House Speaker Michael Madigan tried, in vain, to place a surcharge on income over $1 million in the spring of 2016. Another Democrat leader filed a bill months later to institute a progressive tax that ultimately failed as well.

According to Census data, the average pay of the 114,000 people leaving Illinois for other states in 2016 was nearly $80,000. The group of people leaving Illinois in droves include millionaires, who along with other higher-end earners would most be impacted by a progressive tax. According to research firm New World Wealth, about 3,000 Chicago millionaires left the state in 2015. Chicago was the only U.S. city to see such a large number of millionaires leave for other U.S. states.

A March WalletHub report on overall tax burden put Illinois as the costliest in the nation. It said the state’s residents pay more than $8,000 annually in state and local taxes.

Analysts with the nonpartisan Tax Foundation called Illinois’ flat tax as “its saving grace” in terms of policies that attracted or repelled businesses.

In its annual “Tax Freedom Day” report, the foundation determines the day of the year when the residents of each state have worked enough to pay off their tax burden. Analyst Nicole Kaeding said that Illinois’ Tax Freedom Day, which is already seven days behind the nation average, would fall even later if the state instituted a progressive income tax.