By Greg Bishop/INN

SPRINGFIELD – Gov. Bruce Rauner signed executive orders Thursday that will require publication of political hires to the Illinois Transparency and Accountability Portal website.

Political hires, or Rutan-exempt employees, became an issue within the Department of Transportation under former Gov. Pat Quinn. Rauner says his administration is still looking into possible fixes.

"We'll check into that and see if we can't make sure that our implementation of this helps, and if we find that we need to take further steps to help prevent those kinds of shenanigans, we'll take further action," Rauner said.

Politics professor at the University of Illinois at Springfield Kent Redfield said another problem involves management employees being lumped into bargaining units.

"The people within the bargaining unit are being supervised by people who are also in the bargaining unit and that complicates things," Redfield said.

Redfield said when managers are members of the bargaining unit of their subordinates there can be a conflict when pay or discipline is considered. It’s estimated there are around 2,900 Rutan-exempt employees working for the state of Illinois.

The Illinois Transparency and Accountability Portal is online at accountability.Illinois.gov.