Blagojevich aide owed IRS $21,548 when hired
SPRINGFIELD | Lien was lifted after she became deputy governor last year
SPRINGFIELD -- One of Gov. Blagojevich's highest-ranking aides faced a sizable tax problem when he hired her in 2003 -- and when he promoted her almost four years later.
Deputy Gov. Louanner Peters had a federal tax lien for $21,548 placed against her by the Internal Revenue Service in July 2002, according to records in the District of Columbia's recorder of deeds office.
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The lien was lifted by the IRS in March 2007, four months after Blagojevich promoted Peters to be one of two deputy governors in his administration.
Peters, who now makes $135,199 annually, did not return a phone call, and the governor's office declined to outline the specific circumstances behind Peters' multi-year federal tax debt.
"When Ms. Peters joined our administration in 2003, she was in the process of repaying taxes owed from previous years when she worked on a contractual basis," Blagojevich spokeswoman Abby Ottenhoff said in an e-mail. "She properly disclosed it in the interview process, and the debt has been paid in full."
Ottenhoff did not respond to a query seeking Peters' state employment application or any other document in which Peters might have disclosed the matter.
Before Blagojevich hired Peters as a $120,000-a-year deputy chief of staff for social services, she had been his deputy campaign manager. Previously, she had served as chief of staff for former U.S. Rep. Gus Savage (D-Ill.) and did campaign work for former Washington, D.C., mayors Marion Barry and Anthony Williams.
In the mid-1990s, Peters chaired the Washington Convention Authority in Washington, D.C. But she faced criticism in a government audit for allegedly misusing the agency's credit card to buy personal items, for which she later reimbursed the authority, according to published reports.
"Someone making nearly $140,000 a year certainly has the means and ability to pay their obligations. Most families in this state get by with a lot less. But here's the deputy governor of the state of Illinois, and it's obviously an afterthought," said Rep. Jack Franks (D-Woodstock).
"This doesn't surprise us, and that's what the tragedy is," said Rep. Robert Pritchard (R-Hinckley). "It's a continued pattern the governor has followed. Yes, this is concerning. And yes, in a normal administration, it would require the person to resign. But not in this administration."
Last year, the governor drew fire for his 2003 hiring of Steven Guerra, a $120,000-a-year deputy chief of staff who served nearly two years in federal prison in the 1980s for refusing to testify before a federal grand jury investigating bombings by Puerto Rican separatists in New York and Chicago.
Guerra, who remains on the job, has a $33,954 federal tax lien he did not know about until a Chicago Sun-Times report last September.
Earlier in 2007, the governor hired former Rep. Calvin Giles (D-Chicago) for an $84,996-a-year state transportation administrative post, despite Giles owing more than $80,000 in state election fines -- a debt he still hasn't paid.