Chicago had nearly 15,000 municipal employees paid at least six figures in 2017, up more than 1,000 from the previous year. That’s more than 40 percent of the city’s workforce.

The outgoing Illinois Senate voted with the House in approving large pay increases for state department heads. The bill now heads to the governor’s desk, though likely not until J.B. Pritzker is sworn in.

Dictating teachers’ salaries from Springfield would impose a costly mandate on local school districts and expose struggling homeowners across the state to property tax hikes.

David St. Pierre is the latest Illinois government employee to receive a generous severance package, despite leaving under questionable circumstances.

Duplicative school districts and an excess of publicly funded six-figure salaries have educated Norridge-Harwood Heights taxpayers on the benefits of consolidation.

Illinois has more units of local government than any other state in the country, many of which are duplicative and overlapping. In Belleville, where the majority of the city’s school districts cover fewer students than the state average, consolidation efforts could boost efficiency while saving taxpayer dollars.

More than half of local school district administrators earn more than $100,000, and those incomes will get a boost after a recent board decision.

Many school district employees’ earnings are more than double that of the typical Belleville household.

The excessive severance package comes as a bill curbing golden parachutes sits in the Illinois House of Representatives.