ILLINOIS - Memo to Chicago area public transit executives: If you want to increase riders' fares, Gov. Blagojevich wants to freeze your salaries.

Blagojevich is crafting a plan that, if approved by the General Assembly, would force transit agencies that increase fares in 2009 or 2010 to hold the line on pay for all nonunion employees for those same years. If the boards that govern those agencies don't do that, the state would bar fare increases from taking effect.

The governor's proposal is a response to the CTA and Pace forging ahead with Jan. 1 fare increases. Blagojevich had said the agencies should be able to keep fares the same because they're getting hundreds of millions of new dollars annually through a transit bailout that raised sales taxes in Cook and collar counties this year.

But transit leaders, particularly those at the CTA, say they need to increase fares because of higher fuel and other costs -- including costs tied to the governor's free-rides-for-seniors program, which he insisted be part of the bailout.

Salaries for dozens of transit executives continued to rise in 2008 as state bailout money started to flow, records show. The Sun-Times Watchdogs column reported Monday that the number of Pace executives who make more than $100,000 a year increased from 13 in 2006 to 20 this year.

Pace, the CTA and RTA, the umbrella agency for the Chicago area's transit agencies, plan salary increases again in 2009, officials said.