Illinois continues to struggle to fill vacancies on public boards, state audit shows

State boards and commissions tasked with solving some of Illinois’ biggest problems have been left with hundreds of vacancies for appointed positions and often didn’t have enough members to conduct business, a report released last month from the state auditor general found.

The report covered a two-year period ending in 2022, but many of the issues in filling seats on boards and commissions have persisted for years. Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office has said it has since made several changes to improve the ability of the many appointed panels to function.

Failing to fill enough seats so those boards can fully function has the potential to stymie progress on fixing issues that legislators or state officials  thought, at least at one point, were significant enough to warrant their own task force.

“They were created for a reason. They do have a purpose. But it’s our job to see the agencies and the governor’s office are meeting their requirements, getting them the resources to do it.” Auditor General Frank Mautino said.

In the two years ending in June 2022 covered by the report, 30% of the boards that existed — with purposes as disparate as reforming campaign finance in judicial elections to promoting amateur sports — were inactive, the IG found. Some weren’t working because they didn’t have enough members, while others had just recently been created during the time of the audit or were inactive for other reasons, auditors found.

More than 30 had been inactive since at least 2018, the report said.

The audit found nearly two thirds of the state’s 339 boards and commissions had at least one vacancy, with more than 1,300 vacancies statewide at the time the audit was completed. The majority also had at least one vacancy that was supposed to be filled by the governor.

In many cases, boards can function without a full roster of members, but 50 were inactive because they didn’t have enough members to conduct business, the report said.

The governor’s office maintains an online database of its board appointments, which shows progress from the time of the report.

There were 688 governor-appointed vacancies as of Friday, according to the database, down from 839 reported during the audit.

The idea that boards aren’t at full capacity is “disappointing,” said Alisa Kaplan, executive director at the nonprofit Reform for Illinois, both “in a democratic sense” because lawmakers “claim they’re doing something about a certain issue,” and to invested stakeholders.

“Often task forces and commissions are created by legislation to placate constituencies or kick the can down the road,” Kaplan said.

Organizations as recognizable as the Prisoner Review Board and Illinois Labor Relations Board are included in the scope of “boards and commissions,” along with lesser-known entities such as the Commission on Amateur Sports and the Illinois Flag Commission.

The positions are typically not salaried, though some are. Members in many cases are provided with some kind of compensation such as per diem or travel reimbursements, according to the auditor’s office.

“I don’t think most vacancies happen for any sinister reason,” Kaplan said. People are busy and may not want to take the time to do the work in such a public position “in the line of fire,” she said.

Sometimes, it’s the appointing authority itself that gets busy, she added.

And regardless of the reason, “it undermines the public’s trust to have a bunch of commissions that are supposed to be doing a job for them and aren’t,” she said.

While the period auditors studied in this report overlaps with part of Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration, its findings reflect a long-standing issue.

A slightly greater proportion of boards and commissions — just over a quarter — were inactive during the period of the 2021-2022 audit than reported being inactive during the last major audit, which focused on fiscal 2008 when Rod Blagojevich was governor. Some boards studied in 2021 and 2022 blamed the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic for their inactivity, according to the report.

The Governor’s Office of Executive Appointments has made organizational changes since the audit to be more efficient, according to a response letter signed by Pritzker from May that was included in the report. The office made a record number of appointments to boards and commissions during fiscal 2023, the letter said.

“The Office looks forward to working collaboratively with State agencies and the General Assembly to continue to identify opportunities for improvement, the office said in response.

Among boards that weren’t active during the latest audit were some meant to protect some of Illinois’ most vulnerable residents.

An Advisory Council on Youth HIV/AIDS Prevention was one of three boards that was inactive due to funding or appropriations issues; a contact for the group said they didn’t know if any money was ever appropriated, auditors wrote.

Among the boards that didn’t have enough members to operate, the Task Force on Transitional Housing for Sex Offenders, created in 2008 to study housing options for people convicted of sex offenses and released from incarceration, did not have any members appointed during the time of the audit, the report said. A task force contact said the group had “not met in years,” the report found.

The Racial Disproportionality in Child Welfare Task Force, created in 2021, did not begin meeting until after the end of the period that was audited. Auditors could not determine why it was inactive at the time, according to the report, though it has now met more than 20 times, according to records maintained by the Department of Children and Family Services.

With many paid positions having been eliminated in recent decades, the total amount spent on salaries and other payments related to the boards was down significantly since that 2011 report. About $1.75 million was spent on compensation in fiscal 2022, compared with more than $8 million in fiscal 2009, according to auditor reports.

Pritzker’s administration has been receptive to auditors’ recommendations on the issues, Mautino said.

The administration agreed with all of the report’s recommendations, including removing from its website boards and commissions that have completed their work or been repealed. The administration also said it had begun implementing a new tracking system as of November for term expirations, meant to mitigate the issue of vacancies.

The full extent to which the administration is able to fix the long-standing problems may become more clear in the coming years: The auditor’s office plans to follow up in 2025, with an update to the report expected in 2026.

Illinois for decades has implemented a series of ethics reforms to boards and commissions, including a ban under Blagojevich on lobbyists serving on them. Blagojevich, who later served time in prison for corruption, came under scrutiny for awarding influential board seats to campaign donors even after that reform was enacted .

Hundreds of boards and commissions were eliminated in the 1970s and ’80s, and the scope was again cut around 2011, Mautino said. The sheer number of boards doesn’t necessarily reflect an inefficiency, but boards that are no longer needed should be shut down by the General Assembly or the governor, and vacancies should be filled, he said.

“There may be good work that has to be done, and we need to see more concentration on filling those positions. … They were created for a reason, and they need to have all of their components available in order to continue to work,” Mautino said.