Gov. Pat Quinn’s administration hired more than 60 percent of the Illinois Department of Transportation workers whose employment was deemed improper by a state watchdog, a document released Friday shows.
The IDOT document shows that 173 of the 245 people hired as “staff assistants” since 2002 still work for the state, including 161 at the transportation agency.
The state’s executive inspector general found that the 245 workers were hired in a process that often skirted state rules that prohibited giving out jobs based on political connections. Questions about the hiring are dogging Quinn as he runs for re-election this November against Republican businessman Bruce Rauner.
The Democrat’s administration recently announced that 58 of the employees would be laid off Sept. 30 because their jobs are no longer needed. Most of those workers filed a lawsuit Friday asking a judge to let them keep working until IDOT justifies the layoffs.
An IDOT spokesman said none of the remaining employees will be fired, as Rauner has demanded.
Inspector General Ricardo Meza’s investigation determined that IDOT often filled the jobs with politically connected candidates to perform policy tasks. But they ended up doing routine jobs, such as answering phones and mowing lawns, and therefore their jobs should have been open to anyone.
Quinn pointed out the practice had gone on for years. But the list released Friday showed that 153 — or 62 percent — had been hired since February 2009, a month after Quinn took over from his predecessor, the now-imprisoned ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich.