By Ashleigh Costello
EAGnews.org

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — A former lobbyist for the state’s largest teachers union is collecting a taxpayer funded pension of more than $100,000 a year, even though her time as a state worker totaled less than seven years.

Gail Purkey, 58, briefly worked for Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s legislative staff and the Illinois Arts Council, an agency chaired by Madigan’s wife, Shirley, before leaving her government position in 1988 for a private sector job with the Illinois Federation of Teachers.

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Her service with the state was not long enough to qualify for a pension.

But the former IFT lobbyist is set to receive a total of about $3 million from the State Employee’s Retirement System by the time she is 78, reports the Chicago Tribune.

Under a 2007 law, sponsored by Purkey’s former boss, Speaker Madigan, employees of statewide labor unions who were previously employed by the government were given a special six-month window to rejoin the taxpayer-supported pension plan.

The legislation also allowed those individuals to have their pensions based on union salaries that were generally much higher than state employee salaries.

It almost sounds like the law was personally designed for Purkey, doesn’t it?

“The chance to rejoin the state workers’ fund years later had such lucrative long-term potential that Purkey paid more than $600,000 for the opportunity, including rolling in other retirement fund dollars and writing personal checks,” according to the Tribune.

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The IFT also helped Purkey pay the amount needed to join the state pension system.

While Purkey’s final state salary was only $36,800, her pension is based on the average of her four highest salaries during her last 10 years of employment with the union, which is close to $195,000.

That allowed her to receive $101,909 in pension payments this year, and she will receive an annual 3 percent cost of living increase each January. She also qualifies for free health coverage.

To add insult to injury, Illinois has one of the most underfunded state pension systems in the nation, with a deficit quickly approaching $93 billion.

“I followed what the law said,” Purkey told the Tribune.

After seven years of retirement, Purkey’s pension payments will easily exceed the $666,300 that she and the IFT contributed.