Put it on the record that Gov. JB PRITZKER has had it with some of the stuff that passes for business as usual in Springfield.

He put down that marker last week when he asked state Agriculture Director JOHN SULLIVAN to resign. Sullivan’s sin was having his name linked to MICHAEL McCLAIN, the former lawmaker and super lobbyist who is also a close confidant of House Speaker MICHAEL MADIGAN.

Sullivan said Pritzker’s legal counsel notified him that McClain dropped Sullivan’s name in an email. At the time, Sullivan was still a state senator representing a district in the western part of the state including Quincy, McClain’s home. Sullivan said he checked his old email and discovered he’s been sent a copy of the infamous McClain email that talked about a loyal employee who kept his mouth shut about ghost payrolling and a rape in Champaign.

Sullivan said he got a lot of emails from McClain and didn’t read a lot of them. He said he didn’t remember reading to the end of that particular email. Had he done so, Sullivan said, he would have referred the thing to the proper authorities to investigate.

That didn’t happen so Sullivan is now out. The first casualty of this mess is someone who pretty much no one would have thought would have gotten caught up in it. Pritzker didn’t level a specific charge against Sullivan, only that he was aware of the email “and did not handle it appropriately. ...”

“This McClain email is emblematic of a culture that has been poisonous in Springfield for far too long,” Pritzker said at an appearance in Chicago. “Those who protect the culture, those who tolerate it, those who promote it will have to answer for their role in it.”

Pritzker also offered some advice to anyone who gets a chat with investigators.

“If an investigator contacts someone and asks them to cooperate, they should cooperate, not put a smug grin on their face and to laugh about not cooperating like Mike McClain did,” Pritzker said.

He was referring to video of McClain outside an upscale steakhouse in Chicago. Two reporters for WBEZ radio, which broke the McClain email story, got a tip he was at the restaurant. They caught up with him and asked if he was cooperating with federal investigators. McClain smiled and said he was asked to cooperate. But the look on his face sure seemed to indicate cooperation was the last thing he was doing.

”Anyone who thinks it’s ok to talk about these things like they’re in a crime syndicate doesn’t belong in Springfield anymore. We need change.” Pritzker putting a period on his disgust with what has been going on.

• A study by the University of Illinois Springfield’s Institute for Illinois Public Finance has measured how efficient Illinois is in various aspects of state government.

It uses a method that compares things like number of prison inmates or college degrees awarded to the costs of providing those things and the number of state employees needed to provide them. Got that?

Anyhoo, according to the study, Illinois state government ranks with the most efficient states in higher education, environment, housing and infrastructure. It also ranks in the top 20 among states for welfare and in the top half for public safety and health and hospital efficiency.

Now you’re probably saying that Illinois can’t possibly be no worse than average in every category and you would be correct. The study determined that Illinois isn’t very efficient in elementary and secondary education and ranks near the bottom when it comes to transportation. Neither of those rankings should come as much of a surprise to anyone.

Take all of that however you choose.

Contact Doug Finke@sj-r.com, 788-1527, twitter.com/dougfinkesjr.