Former House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert has plowed through about $1 million in taxpayer dollars in the last two years for an office and staff in west suburban Yorkville, thanks to a little-known perk given to ex-speakers.
Hastert, 68, a lobbyist and business consultant who retired from Congress in 2007, has hired three of his former staffers at salaries of more than $100,000 apiece to run the publicly financed office.
Taxpayers also are paying monthly rent of $6,300 to a company partly owned by three sons of a Hastert mentor and business partner. Other public funds go for an $860-a-month 2008 GMC Yukon leased from a dealership owned by a Hastert friend and campaign donor.
Most of the money went to pay Hastert's employees, all of whom worked for him while he held office. Bryan Harbin, an administrative assistant, now is paid $138,551 a year. Secretary Thomas Jarman earns $116,365, and secretary Lisa Post $101,000.
Travel, too, is on the public dime: airfare, hotels, taxis, tolls, gas, parking and mileage reimbursement for use of private vehicles. According to Hahn, two of the staffers used taxpayer funds to travel with Hastert to Washington last year when a portrait of him was unveiled on Capitol Hill.
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