The average Illinois legislator cost taxpayers $99,968 last year.

That’s according to a new study released by the Illinois Policy Institute today that shows $18,094,238 was spent on salaries, stipends, benefits and reimbursements for 181 current and former legislators in 2015.

The state can’t pay its bills to those who have done work for us, but somehow the legislators are still ensuring they are getting paid before everyone else,” said Ted Dabrowski, vice president of policy and co-author of the Illinois Policy Institute’s report. “When it’s all added up, you’re talking about a really high price tag for politicians that haven’t delivered.”

The Illinois Policy Institute is a conservative research organization that tracks and analyzes government spending.

Public officials who travel to do the taxpayers’ work are going to face a lot more restrictions when it comes to asking them to pick up the tab.

National labor leaders visited the Illinois delegation Tuesday, pledging support for their Democratic allies and railing against Gov. Bruce Rauner, with one prominent union head calling him a “jackass” and vowing to “take him out” in 2018.

The scene was a spirited display of the strong allegiance between Democrats who control the legislature in Springfield and the forces of organized labor in their protracted battle with the Republican governor. That dynamic has been a central theme of the state delegation’s gathering at the Democratic National Convention, often overshadowing the presidential contest between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

It also was a not-so-subtle reminder of the symbiotic nature of that allegiance: Labor unions dispatch their armies of volunteers and vast financial resources to help elect Democrats, and Democrats in turn protect and promote the policies favored by organized labor.

Downers Grove police on Tuesday released a heavily redacted police report that sheds little light on the investigation prompted by a suburban Republican lawmaker who said he quit in part because of fraudulent social media accounts set up in his name.

The report, dated July 14, indicates that state Rep. Ron Sandack, a top ally of Gov. Bruce Rauner, complained to his hometown Downers Grove Police Department. The report described the complaint only as an “internet scam.”

Sandack told the Tribune on Monday that he resigned because politics had gotten “too ugly.” One of the reasons he cited was what he described as several fraudulent social media accounts set up in his name in recent weeks. Last week, Sandack deleted his Facebook and Twitter accounts. When asked if any compromising information was accessed before he deleted his social media accounts, Sandack told the Tribune “no.”

If you follow our pension problems closely, you probably think Cook County faces an unfunded pension liability of about $6 billion, which makes it about 60% funded. That’s how it has been very commonly reported over the last year.

Under the new accounting standards of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, which are now gaining wide acceptance, the unfunded liability in fact was $15.3 billion and was 36% funded as of 12/31/15. Details are contained in an actuarial report recently completed that I had to get through a Freedom of Information Act request.

If you prefer to look at it apples-to-apples, year-over-year, here are the details:

Under the old method of reporting, which is shown in the actuary report for 2015 recently posted on Cook County’swebsite, the unfunded liability increased by $700 million, from $6.5 billion to $7.2 billion, and the funded ratio dropped from 57.5$ to 55.5% from 12/31/14 to 12/31/15.

According to an April 2014 Gallup poll, 59% of Americans worry they won’t have enough money for retirement. As someone who researches and analyzes government financials, I worry about retirement benefits — especially pensions — that governments have promised to their employees, including teachers.

Last year, our research showed that for fiscal year 2014, states had a total of $80 billion of reported unfunded pension liabilities, but states’ actual pension debt was $628 billion. The difference was a result of accounting rules that required states to hide the vast majority of their unfunded pension liabilities off their balance sheets. Now, state and local governments are starting to feel the pressure to come up with the money to pay these unfunded liabilities.

My home state of Illinois is known for being in a financial mess and has one of the worst-funded pension systems in the country. In fact, our most recent data show that Illinois has only $78 billion to pay its $195 billion of promised pension benefits. Why have Illinois pension liabilities become such a problem? Part of the answer is failure of leadership from past and current governors and legislators, and perhaps worse, deceptive financial reporting and communication. For too many years, the total amount of unfunded pension liabilities was not reported to citizens, and the state’s true compensation costs were not included in the budget.