The state legislature is nearing approval of a bill that would create an appeals board where local governments could challenge programs that Springfield orders without providing the money to pay for them.
The bill, backed by Chicago and suburban legislators from both political parties, sets up a State Mandates Board of Appeals under the comptroller`s office, said Rita Athas, executive director of the Northwest Municipal Conference.
”This bill is the culmination of our mandates program,” Athas said, referring to the conference`s months-long campaign for mandates reform.
The existing state Mandates Act calls upon the legislature to compensate local governments, such as municipalities and school districts, for the cost of a program the state requires unless such a mandate is specifically exempted.
Civic leaders, however, contend that the legislature has repeatedly ignored the law, enacting 57 mandates that have cost local governments $148 million over the last decade, yet authorizing only $200,000 to help pay for them.
A mandates reform bill pending in a legislative conference committee would create a five-member appeals board, said William Anderson, assistant director of the Northwest Municipal Conference. The legislation is expected to pass, because it has bipartisan support and backing from Gov. Jim Edgar`s office.
Three appeals board members would be appointed by the governor and two by the comptroller, Anderson said. The state Senate would confirm the nominees, who would serve 2-year terms.
The board would hear appeals, determine whether a program was indeed a mandate, and notify the state agencies that owed money to localities. If the money wasn`t forthcoming, and if a local government was sued because it refused to implement the mandate, the locality could cite the appeals board decision in its defense, Anderson said.
The existing Mandates Act sets up an appeals process through the state Department of Commerce and Community Affairs. But municipal leaders say that agency has been ineffective, having refused to accept applications for reimbursement on the grounds that the legislature failed to appropriate funds for compensation.
Other bills recently passed by the General Assembly would direct the commerce department to accept reimbursement applications regardless, as well as to report annually on proceedings under the Mandates Act.
The legislative initiatives arose from a challenge this spring to a mandate ordering municipalities with underground utility systems to join the Joint Utility Locating Information for Excavators, or JULIE system, which gives excavators a central number to call to check whether utility lines are buried in an area before digging there. The deadline to join was Monday.
Opponents of the JULIE Act were emboldened by an unofficial opinion in April from the Illinois attorney general`s office that advised Hoffman Estates that under the Mandates Act, a municipality couldn`t be forced to implement an unfunded mandate.
Though the opinion had no force of law, it was widely interpreted as giving communities the right to ignore the JULIE Act. Communities such as Hoffman Estates, Streamwood and Barrington have given formal notice that they would not join the locator service,
Other communities, however, have opted to play it safe by joining. The Arlington Heights Village Board voted to do so Monday. The Elgin City Council voted to join last week, but on the condition that the city await revised membership terms being negotiated between JULIE and the Illinois Municipal League.
Negotiators seek to address what municipal leaders say is their potential liability under the present JULIE membership agreement.
A JULIE spokesman said that about 900 of the nearly 2,000 municipally owned utility systems in the state had signed up as members or were in the process of applying for membership by the Monday deadline. Most of the rest appeared to be awaiting the outcome of talks between JULIE and the municipal league.
