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Disgraced Ex-Madigan Aide To Collect $130K

Aleksey Butov
/
123rf Stock Photo

The former chief of staff to Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan who resigned amid sexual harassment allegations will collect $130,500 for unused vacation and sick time, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

A 40-year state employee, Timothy Mapes will be reimbursed for 91 vacation days and will get half-pay for 146 sick days for a payout of $130,516.28, according to records disclosed under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act.

That is in addition to an annual pension the 63-year-old Mapes can collect of about $134,000, according to calculations based on his years of service and recent years' annual salaries.

Forced to step down June 6 from his $208,000-a-year job, Mapes had been House clerk in recent years in addition to being the powerful Madigan's chief of staff since 1992.

Mapes was caught up in the sexual-harassment scandal that has dogged the Illinois Democratic Party, for which Madigan is chairman and Mapes had been executive director. Mapes' career ended abruptly after House Democratic staff member Sheri Garrett alleged that Mapes was dismissive of complaints of sexual harassment by lawmakers against her and other women and that he made sexually inappropriate remarks himself.

No one answered the door at Mapes' Springfield home last week when an AP reporter visited seeking comment. Mapes did not respond to written messages left at the home.

The incidents occurred from 2013 and continued, Garrett alleged, until late last spring, well after Madigan had made a public showing of strengthening procedures for investigating sexual harassment because of the #MeToo anti-harassment movement, and after Madigan faced the first of several successive challenges this year to his handling of harassment and intimidation allegations in his political and government operations.

Garrett filed a complaint against Mapes with the legislative inspector general. The stiffest penalty Mapes could receive, if the accusations are proven, would be a $5,000 fine.

But even that wouldn't have been possible before last fall, when lawmakers were pressured into a response to the #MeToo backlash that flattened the careers of dozens of prominent men in entertainment, politics and the media. Madigan sponsored legislation making sexual harassment a subject the legislative inspector general could investigate.

In the spring, bipartisan task forces in the House and Senate overhauled the Legislative Ethics Commission's processes. The law Gov. Bruce Rauner signed June 8 authorizes the commission to take action against proven harassment and intimidation even if the accused is no longer employed.

Mapes' daily rate of pay was just under $797, the documents indicate. He receives that rate for each of the 91 vacation days and half that rate for the sick days. The sick days were accumulated from 1984 to 1998, when state law allowed a half-day's pay for each sick day left on the books at the end of an employee's career.

Half-pay for sick days was an initiative to combat rampant absenteeism among state employees in the early 1980s. It was revoked 15 years later when, at a time of tightening finances, retiring employees were raking in tens of thousands of dollars for sick days left on the books.

In all, Mapes racked up 320 unused sick days over a 40-year career. Although he received half pay for only 146 of them, the others figure into service time in calculating his pension.

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