"Who gets what?" That is a question the General Assembly decides, and lawmakers spent much of May and June debating income-related issues. Lawmakers argued about adequate grant levels for public aid recipients. They wrangled over pay for election judges and debated whether each legislator should be allowed $18,000 to hire an administrative assistant. But without dispute approximately $3.6 million in salary hikes for constitutional officers, judges, top state administrators and most lawmakers went quietly into effect July 1. Subject to often acrimonious debate were questions that affect money others receive, including:

• Revision of unemployment insurance and payments to those out of work.

• State aid to schools and universities, which determines teacher and faculty salaries.

• Grant levels for those on welfare.

• Comparable worth and its implications for pay hikes for female state workers.

• A pay hike for legislative committee chairmen. The July 1 salary hikes were the second phase of last year's Compensation Review Board report. The top state salaries are those of the Gov. James R. Thompson and the seven Illinois Supreme Court justices, who will see their pay go from $88,825 to $93,266. Other judicial salary boosts on July 1 go to the apellate court judges from $83,600 to $87,780. circuit court judges from $76,285 to $80,099 and associate judges from $71,060 to $74,613. Hikes are smaller for most constitutional officers. Lt. Gov. George H. Ryan's salary increases from $62,700 to $65,835. Salaries for Secy. of State Jim Edgar and Atty. Gen. Neil F. Hartigan go up from $78,375 to $82,294. And salaries or Comptroller Roland W. Burris and Treasurer Jerry Cosentino increase from $67,925 to $71,321.

The smallest of all the state salary increases covered by the review board's action was the extra pay for the House conference chairs and the Senate caucus chairs, from $6,270 to $6,584. But all representatives and 39 of 59 senators get pay hikes from $33,962 to $35,661.

Directors of the state's largest agencies, Mental Health, Transportation, Public Health, Revenue, Employment Security, Public Aid, each receive boosts from $67,925 to $71,321, the highest level of salaries paid to appointed state officials. Other agency directors and appointed executive officers receive increases, sliding all the way down the scale to those of the state fire marshall, adjutant general and the director of the Emergency Services and Disaster Agency, from $38,665 to $40,598.

This year's pay hikes did not go altogether undebated. The argument had come a year before when senators voted not to reject two-step raises recommended by the state's Compensation Review Board for about 1,000 top state offices. The first step of 4.5 percent went into effect a year ago, the second, of 5 percent, on July 1 this year.

The larger jumps — as much as 60 percent — had come in 1985, in the board's first report, when salaries of constitutional officers and a number of department heads rose dramatically. Once that first report made those salary adjustments, increases have been passed on across-the-board percentages.

The Compensation Review Board was created in 1984 to ease the conflict that legislators face in raising their own salaries. Historically those increases would be voted on right after the November election. The last one passed by lame duck lawmakers in 1978 boosted their salaries from $20,000 to $28,000 and sparked retaliation from the citizenry via the 1980 Cutback Amendment which trimmed the size of the House from 177 to 118 members. The board sets salaries for judges, constitutional officers, legislators and certain appointed executive officers. The latter include, for example, members of the Racing and Law Enforcement Merit boards and the secretary of state's and comptroller's directors of personnel. Not covered are Illinois' highest paid jobs, those in the public universities.

The Compensation Review Board is a creature of the General Assembly, but insulated from politics. Appointments are made by legislative leaders. Appointees cannot be nor have ever been members or employees of any of the branches of state government, nor can they be registered lobbyists. Members, by statute, are to consider the skill and time required to perform a job, the opportunity for other income, pay in other states and the private sector, the cost of living, the public welfare and the ability of the state to pay. The board must hold public hearings and report on a pay plan by May 1 in each even-numbered year. After the board makes its report the General Assembly has 30 days to reject or modify it. Rejection or modifications must be by majority vote in both houses. It requires a "double negative," two rejections, to prevent a report from being implemented.

The first report was submitted in December 1984 (according to a transition schedule). It was rejected. The board revised it. When senators failed to reject the modified report it went into effect, surviving a court challenge to its consitutionality by the Coalition for Political Honesty, the group that pushed the Cutback Amendment through the initiative and referendum process.

The board made its second report in May 1986, proposing increases of 9.7 percent over two years. Lawmakers argued. The House rejected the hikes. But in June the Senate voted 30 to 26 against rejection, in effect allowing the increases to be implemented.

A constitutional provision that prohibits raises during terms of office for legislative and executive officers complicates the picture for implementing increases. Only judges, the auditor general and the deputy auditor general — the latter two are appointed officers of the legislative branch — got the 1987 increase immediately. In the case of Thompson, the 1984 report upped the governor's salary from $58,000 to $85,000, but he could not receive the new salary until his inauguaration to a new term in January 1987. When the board's May 1986 report was not rejected, the gubernatorial salary was boosted again, to $88,825 on July 1, 1986, and to $93,266 this July 1. Upon his inauguration Thompson's salary jumped from $58,000 to $88,825 and six months later it has increased to $93,266.

For lawmakers the issue is even more complex. The 1986 report boosted their salaries from $32,500 to $33,962 on July 1, 1986, and to $35,661 this July 1. All representatives and the 39 senators elected in November got the 1986 amount when they took office in January and are entitled to the 1987 increase because it was scheduled before their new terms began. The 20 senators elected to four-year terms in 1984 will continue to receive $32,500 throughout their current terms.

One of those waiting is Sen. Judy Baar Topinka (R-22, Riverside), but she likes the work the board has done and thinks raises have been fair. So does Sen. Arthur L. Berman (D-2, Chicago), who pushed for creation of the board. "This is my nineteenth year. Every time a pay raise was proposed it became a demagogic issue," Berman says. Rep. Alfred G. Ronan (D-12, Chicago) thinks the board has moved the pay raise process into the public spotlight. Before 1984 hikes were made "at the stroke of midnight, the last day of a legislative session," he says. And Rep. Robert Terzich (D-48, Chicago), who handled the legislation creating the board in the House, says he could criticize individual salaries but agrees with most of what the board has done. He says the process returns lawmakers to the more familiar role of ratifying the work of others.

But that support is not universal. Rep. Thomas W. Ewing (R-87, Pontiac) knows the issue is tough. "People back home make you feel dirty," he says. Ewing thinks the legislative action to accept the board's report should be modified. He suggests allowing either house, instead of both houses, to reject a report. Rep. David Harris (R-53, Arlington Heights) would go farther. He believes the General Assembly has improperly abrogated its authority to set salaries. He argues that the procedural double negative — Harris calls it "affirmation of the negative" — necessary to reject a report confuses voters. More proper would be a requirement for a positive vote in each house to accept a Compensation Review Board report. A bill he introduced to do that was held in committee this spring. Harris also believes the salaries set by the board have been unrealistically high because board members do not understand government.

His own salary as a part-time legislator, he says, has increased from $28,000 to $35,000 since 1984. Harris acknowledges that, for example, J. Thomas Johnson may have been underpaid by private sector standards while serving as director of the Department of Revenue, but says that Johnson's experience translated into money when he jumped to the accounting firm of Grant-Thornton.

But Kevin M. Forde, a former Chicago Bar Association president tapped to chair the Compensation Review Board, says he was shocked that department heads like Johnson made no more. "I don't know how the state kept these people," Forde says. Accordingly those increases were the largest recommended by the board in 1985. One of the board's accomplishments, Forde believes, is offering hope of intelligent, continuing review of salaries to such persons. Forde contends that the board has fulfilled its charge of providing a dispassionate and objective review of salaries.

Its actions have suited Gov. Thompson, who advocated its creation and argued that he was having trouble filling top positions. "To the extent that pay is a factor it was becoming a problem, and more of a factor than it should have been," says Susan Mogerman, a Thompson press aide. "The governor was pleased by what was done," Mogerman says.

Some approve the Compensation Review Board. Others argue that it is a back door method of raising legislators' pay. Most acknowledge that the July 1 pay raises would have sparked fireworks had they required a vote this spring. "It would stop government," says Sen. Topinka. Soon the process will begin anew. The Compensation Review Board is scheduled to report again in May of 1988, and Forde says he expects to convene the Board in November to schedule public hearings and set out the structure for the next set of recommendations.