IDOT fires personnel manager

SPRINGFIELD – An Illinois Department of Transportation personnel manager who saw his salary nearly double in five years, including an 8 percent bump in the final days of the Blagojevich administration, has been fired.

Scott Doubet was fired Friday, spokeswoman Paris Ervin said.

Ervin said Gov. Pat Quinn was “moving in a different direction” and would not say whether Doubet’s firing was related to the pay raise that he and 11 other IDOT employees received just weeks before now-indicted Gov. Rod Blagojevich was impeached and removed from office.

The AP reported in March that the dozen IDOT employees received increases of as much as 11.5 percent despite the budget crisis, prompting Quinn to launch an investigation into what he called “midnight raises.”

Doubet, who began in Blagojevich’s patronage office, saw his salary grow almost $8,000 a year, to $106,000, with the January raise, according to agency records.

That’s nearly double his starting IDOT salary of $55,000 in 2004.