The state of Illinois is playing hide and seek with the salary information of its public employees, and we don’t like it.

State taxpayers shouldn’t, either.

Rep. Mike Tryon, R-Crystal Lake, crafted legislation in 2009 that created the Illinois Transparency and Accountability Portal (accountability.illinois.gov), a database of state government spending.

Visitors to the web site can view volumes of spending data going back to 2008.

For example, are you curious whether the Attorney General’s Office is spending more on staff travel in 2011 than it did in 2009 or 2010? Look it up at the portal.

You can compare and contrast spending practices over time across a large volume of line items, with the exception of salaries.

The Illinois Policy Institute discovered recently that someone in state government has removed salary data from 2008 and 2009. Other expenses from those years have not come down, just the salaries.

We wonder why. Is it because the state does not want taxpayers to see disturbing trends in salaries?

In its report on the missing information, the Illinois Policy Institute explained why it matters:

“Recent research has indicated that Illinois government employee total compensation has been outpacing that of private employees over the last 15 years. Access to detailed historical information, including pay, job title and seniority, is key to understanding the gap between public sector and private sector pay.”

Tryon, who championed the portal, said he intends to get the older salary information back online. First, he said, he will ask state officials responsible for maintaining the portal nicely. If they don’t comply, he said he will file legislation in January to fix it.

Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

With modern technology, taxpayers should have easy access to information about how their money is spent.