CHICAGO _ Gov. Bruce Rauner took heat in February 2016 for a budget speech that proposed slashing state university funding by 20 percent.
But it turns out that just a day later Rauner was quietly digging into his own pockets to help out higher education _ by, er, spending $625,000 on "The Godfather" memorabilia.
Rauner and his wife Diana last week donated their haul of the papers and possessions formerly belonging to the classic gangster movie's author, Mario Puzo, to Rauner's alma mater Dartmouth College.
Records show that the items, including the 1965 Olympia typewriter on which Puzo likely wrote the novel on which the movie is based, sold for $625,000 at a Boston auction on Feb. 18, 2016, eight months into the state's budget crisis and a day after Rauner delivered a budget address that was poorly received by academics.
Rauner's staff did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday but, according to a news release from Dartmouth, Rauner said, "We love the fact that Puzo's papers document the creation of Dartmouth's most famous fictional alumnus, Michael Corleone, and that they will live for centuries to come with the papers of so many prominent, and real, alumni!"
Rauner could afford to splurge: In the preceding year, he made $188 million, according to his tax return.
