Gov-elect Bruce Rauner blasted Gov. Pat Quinn earlier this month for what he called a booby-trapped budget ready to go off when he takes office, but that’s not the only booby trap Rauner will have a tough time trying to defuse without costing taxpayers. An appointment of a Quinn aide by a majority of Quinn’s appointees to the board is loaded.

Remember the appointment of lame-duck Quinn’s former aide, Lou Bertuca, to a $160,000-a-year post as head of the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority? If you read the fine print of Bertuca’s contract, which Dan Mihalapoulus at the Chicago Sun Times did after he obtained it through of a Freedom of Information Act request, you’ll see it’s an even sweeter deal than originally thought.

More from the Sun Times:

A close reading of the fine print in Bertuca’s newly signed deal reveals how Quinn’s friends at the agency booby-trapped the situation that Rauner will walk into after he’s sworn in.

Bertuca’s contract is largely identical to the deal the agency had with its last executive director, Kelly Kraft — with two highly significant differences that make things much cushier for Bertuca. 

If Bertuca gets fired, his contract ensures he’ll be paid his full salary under the two-year deal, and then some.

Should Bertuca get let go by the ISFA board, though, his contract ensures he would be paid “the remaining base salary due through the term of this agreement in a lump sum” within a month of being fired. So Bertuca will be paid $320,000 in salary under the two-year deal regardless of whether Rauner can get him fired after taking office.

On top of the $320,000, Bertuca also would receive two months’ severance pay. But removing the former Quinn aide from his ISFA post also would require a “unanimous affirmative vote” of the seven-member stadium-authority board, which includes four Quinn appointees.

… The term of the fourth Quinn board appointee, Dr. Quentin Young, doesn’t end until June 30, 2015. Assuming Young continues to support Bertuca, he would be safe in his job until at least next summer.

Even if he’s fired then — as Rauner has said he will try to do — it would leave the agency to pay Bertuca well more than $200,000 for doing nothing.

And as the Sun Times’ Mihalopoulos points out, Bertuca has plenty of reasons to stay as executive director of the ISFA. Not only does his new position give him a 73-percent pay raise, Bertuca also is getting health, dental and vision insurance; a $320,000 life insurance policy; four weeks of paid vacation per year and five paid “personal leave” days a year, according to the Sun Times.

Regardless of what happens when Rauner is sworn in, it’s safe to say Bertuca had a very merry Christmas.

Fleeing Illinois

Preliminary figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau show Illinois lost roughly 10,000 residents — 0.08 percent of its population — in one year, between July 1, 2013 and July 1, 2014, according to ilnews.org.

It appears this is the first time since the 1980s that the combination of births and inbound migration could not outstrip deaths and outbound migration.

The loss is small, analysts said, but the change itself is noteworthy because it indicates Illinois moved from sputtering population growth to actual population loss.

Illinois is one of only six states — the others are West Virginia, Connecticut, New Mexico, Alaska and Vermont — to have lost residents in 2014.

The numbers amplify what Gallup pollsters said in April. Fifty percent of Illinoisans said that if given the chance to move to a different state, they would. Nearly 20 percent said they already are planning to depart.

Aside from the struggling economy and lack of economic opportunity, the state’s tarnished image with regard to corruption are some of reasons residents are fleeing, according to David Yepsen, director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute.

“Businesses dislike taxes, but they hate uncertainty,” he said. “Illinois has been hit with a ‘perfect storm’ of sorts over the last several years.”

Yepsen cited the state’s deficits and debts, slower recovery than most from the Great Recession and a declining manufacturing base.

“Now that things are picking up in general, it can’t be considered a surprise that many people in Illinois are packing up and looking elsewhere,” he said.

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