Lawmakers get eviction notices

Budget crunch means state is slow to pay office rents

SPRINGFIELD

The state's money problems are so bad that lawmakers are getting eviction notices and calls from collection agencies about their offices back home.

At least five state senators say they've piled up so much unpaid rent, sheepish landlords are asking them when the government plans to make good on its bills.

"He said, ‘Ira, I'm sorry,'" said Sen. Ira Silverstein, D-Chicago, recalling a visit from his landlord delivering an eviction notice. "And what am I going to do? I can't argue with the man."

While none of the lawmakers has actually gotten the boot yet, they are getting a taste of the frustratingly slow pace at which the state pays bills as it careens toward a $13 billion budget hole. It's a pain that's magnified exponentially for school districts, drug rehabilitation counselors and businesses awaiting tax refunds.

"It certainly puts us in a position of looking like deadbeats," said Sen. Mike Jacobs, an East Moline Democrat who got an eviction notice last year from a longtime friend who has rented the same building for years to the senator and his father before him. Payment eventually arrived — nine months late — but Jacobs was prepared to pay if the state had failed to come through.

A notice threatening eviction startled freshman Sen. Dan Duffy, a Lake Barrington Republican. Unsure when the state will cough up the $10,000 it owes his landlord, Duffy is scrambling to see if he can take refuge in a nearby secretary of state driver's license outlet or a local library should he eventually get evicted.

"When they can't pay the rent of a Senate office, there's no way they're going to be able to pay the hundreds of millions of dollars in bills that they have back due," Duffy said. "It just shows what a tragic crisis we're in and how far out of hand this is."

In the grand scope of what ails state government, the lawmakers all said they recognized late rent for Senate offices is far from the most pressing budget issue.

Each senator receives $83,063 a year as a district office allowance, and the bills end up at the comptroller's office.

Every day, comptroller workers sift through bills for all of state government and prioritize what must be paid and what has to wait. Each month, $2 billion is set aside. The state must make payments to schools and repay short-term loans. It must pay hospitals, nursing homes and doctors caring for Medicaid patients within 30 days in order to get the best return from the federal government.

Languishing further back in line are the bills to pay rents for lawmaker district offices.

Steve Brown, spokesman for House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, said he knew of no eviction notices going to House members, but has heard that some legislators "on the brink" have had to dip into their own pockets or campaign funds to pay landlords or keep phone service.

Getting utility bills paid in a timely fashion has been a problem for Sen. John Jones, R-Mount Vernon.

"I've heard from collection agencies every month on the power bill and the phone bill," Jones said. The state once fell seven months behind on his district office's $900-a-month rent, and he recalled the landlord saying, "I gotta pay my bills, and I need my money."

Sen. Dan Kotowski, D-Park Ridge, said the state may be as much as one year and $24,000 behind on his office's lease payments and that he's had to dip into campaign funds to make phone payments.

"Service was shut down," Kotowski said. "I wasn't able to communicate with my constituents, and constituents were not able to communicate with me, and I just decided to use other funds to pay for it."

Silverstein said his landlord did get a payment after the senator received the eviction notice, at least temporarily defusing the situation.

But Silverstein's landlord, Demetrios Spyrakos, said Friday he hasn't received rent payments since October. He's owed more than $12,000 from the state.

Spyrakos blames Gov. Pat Quinn, who's tried but failed to get an income tax increase approved. The Jamestown Realty co-owner said he thinks Silverstein is a "good person, but I've been asking for the rent. He's trying, but nobody listens to him or to me."

Silverstein, whose office is in the West Rogers Park neighborhood, might have to find a new place to work out of soon.

"If I don't get my money by next month, I have to ask him politely to leave and try to find another tenant," Spyrakos said. "What else can you do? I can't wait forever. Who's going to pay my bills?"

It's the first time Spyrakos has rented to a politician.

"And I think it's going to be my last."

rlong@tribune.com

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