Despite some of the bad press resulting from the state’s “C-minus” in the Government Performance Project’s latest management survey of all state governments, Illinois appeared to be praised more often than it was criticized.

You can see the complete Illinois study here, or you can just peruse the press release here.

In the end, whether you see Illinois management as a glass half full or a glass half empty doesn’t matter a great deal. The bottom line is that there’s an enormous amount of catching up to do—but at least now there’s somebody checking to see that the glass doesn’t fall off the table.

And some basic facts:

The state takes longer than average to hire new employees and terminates an above average number of new workers before the end of their probationary period. Despite recent high retirement turnover, the state boasts comparatively low voluntary turnover. Illinois spends an average amount of money on benefits per salary dollar for employees, including a 19 percent contribution of employee salary to retirement and payment of 90 percent of an employee’s health insurance costs.

* 51,127 state employees (excluding temps)
* 20% of employees are covered by the merit system
* 45 political appointees serve in the Executive Branch
* 80% of state employees are covered by labor contracts […]

Total benefit dollars per state employee:

* $16,347 for state classified employees
* $16,347 for state non-classified employees
* $20,812 for Environment classified employees
* $29,577 for Environment non-classified employees
* $24,700 for Transportation classified employees
* $36,100 for Transportation non-classified employees

Benefits dollars per dollar of salary:

* $.29 for state classified employees
* $.40 for state non-classified employees
* $.40 for Environment classified employees
* $.32 for Environment non-classified employees
* $.57 for Transportation classified employees
* $.57 for Transportation non-classified employees

Percent of health insurance covered by state:

* 90.9% for state employees

Employee relations:

* There were 1,211 grievances for state employees
* There were 23.7 grievances per 1,000 state employees
* There were 110 appeals for state employees
* There were 2.2 appeals per 1,000 state employees
* There were 138 discrimination charges for state employees
* There were 2.7 discrimination charges per 1,000 state employees

There’s more, and I’m sure other reporters and bloggers will dig it up. I’ll keep looking as well.