Selected State Reports

• Protecting Your Home from Flood Damage, prepared for the Department of Transportation, Divison of Water Resources (January 1980), 26pp.

This concise and well-organized manual is for the homeowner who is worried about flooding. It has numerous photographs, line drawings and diagrams, as well as a great deal of important information.

• Protecting the Privacy of Illinois Citizens: Responding to Federal Initiatives, prepared by the Data Information Systems Commission (October 1979), 88pp.

The Freedom of Information Act of 1966 and the Privacy Act passed eight years later form the basis for action now being taken by individual states in the area of privacy protection. This study brings together the major issues and questions raised by numerous reports on this topic and makes specific recommendations in five areas: government access to personal records and "private papers"; record keeping in the education relationship; the citizen as beneficiary of government assistance; the citizen as taxpayer; research and statistical studies.

• Compensating Differentials and Liability Rules: Who Pays for Workers' Compensation? by Stuart Dorsey and Norman Walzer, Department of Economics, Western Illinois University, Macomb 61455 (August 1980), 55pp.

The most frequently given reason for the existence of workers' compensation is that the private markets do not adequately protect workers against the costs of possible job injury; this study suggests that the labor markets are fairly efficient in producing compensating differentials and that therefore there is little need for such programs for most workers. The authors do not, however, suggest that existing programs should be eliminated; rather, this study should be regarded as part of a general reassessment of the needs and benefits of particular groups of workers.

• A Practical Guide to Illinois Real Estate Taxation, by Brent S. Bohlen for Taxpayers' Federation of Illinois (May 1980), 24pp. Available from the federation at 525 West Jefferson — Suite 506, Springfield 62702.

Three questions are addressed in this brief and clearly written guide: How is the property tax calculated and administered? How significant are the revenues obtained by the property tax? How can an individual have an impact upon his or her property taxes? It also contains tables showing effective tax rates for several cities, farmland values, and local government property taxes for 1975-77.

Items listed under State Documents have been received by the Documents Unit, Illinois State Library, Springfield, and are usually available from public libraries in the state through inter-library loan./A.J.M.

February 1981/Illinois Issues/11