SE Illinois News

MARION – The retirement of the 117th District state Rep. John Bradley (D-Marion) nine days before his term expires has the Williamson County Republican Party asking how it will affect taxpayers.

The 117th District legislative appointment committee appointed Bradley's long-time district manager Jim Kirkpatrick to fill the last seven days of Bradley's term. The appointment was said to be a “reward” for Kirkpatrick's years of service, according to WPSD. In addition to Bradley, he served Congressmen Ken Gray, Glenn Poshard and David Phelps.

Although the legislature is in a lame duck session and David Severin (R-Benton) will be sworn into the office Wednesday, Williamson County GOP Vice Chairman Chris Sheffler is concerned Kirkpatrick's appointment could have lasting financial consequences for taxpayers.

Although supporters say Kirkpatrick won't receive any pay for his nine days of service or benefits, Sheffler told the Southeast Illinois News, there are financial consequences of the resignation.

“He's going to be in the lame duck session, but he's going to need to have security clearances issued for the Capitol and tags for the Capitol and there are going to be costs associated with those sorts of things,” Sheffler said.

But Sheffler said his bigger concern is the potential for lasting financial implications to taxpayers. He said statements have been made that Kirkpatrick won't receive any pension benefits for his service, but Sheffler isn't convinced of that.

He said the General Assembly Retirement System (GARS) allows a secretary or clerk to make special exceptions and allow a person to join GARS.

“What I would think would happen is (House Speaker Mike) Madigan (D-Chicago) is going to have them put in a special circumstance and submit that he's going to retire out of GARS, but based on a director's pay,” Sheffler said.

If Kirkpatrick is allowed to retire through the GARS he would get a 3 percent pension increase annually, health care benefits and death benefits. If he is not granted a special exception he would retire from the State Employee Retirement System. There, increases are based on the Consumer Price Index. Anything could happen within the next week, he said. As a state representative, Kirkpatrick will also be able to get state representative license plates for the rest of his life, he said. If Kirkpatrick had been appointed Dec. 15, 2016 and received a representative's salary for two weeks, then he would have been able to retire based on a legislator's salary, Sheffler said.

“The fact that they did that is very frustrating and the taxpayers need to know. This is why it's good to send him (Bradley) down the road,” Sheffler said.

If Bradley truly needed to retire nine days early it would have been better for incoming state Rep. David Severin to be appointed to the seat because it would have benefited the local district, he said.

In some cases representatives have retired early, Sheffler said. In those cases, if a Republican was retiring and another Republican was coming in then it would elevate the new representative. A second-year representative would be given better positions and committee appointments than a freshman legislator, he said.

“It would have given us (republicans) an advantage, but it would have helped our district and would have helped our people locally, but that's not what they did and not what they chose to do,” Sheffler said.

Sheffler said it seems that there is more to the situation than meets the eye and looks more like a situation of helping out a buddy. The situation won't likely have much impact on Severin, but it does give Republicans something to consider, Sheffler said.

“I think it will provide an opportunity for Republicans statewide to address this as another reform issue and another reason we need term limits,” Sheffler said.