Attorney General Opinions

Regional pollution control facilities

A 1981 amendment to the Illinois Environmental Protection Act (P.A. 82-682) gives local governments more authority in the siting of new regional pollution control facilities (waste storage sites, landfills, waste disposal or incinerator sites, and sewage systems). The amendment requires that the location of the facility must be approved by the county board if in an unincorporated area, or the governing body of the municipality if in an incorporated area.

The attorney general said a "local general purpose unit of government" as used in the amended act (subsection 39t) is a county or municipality. Further, the act provides that a regional pollution control facility is a facility which serves an area "that exceeds or extends over the boundaries of any local general purpose unit of government." Consequently, a facility having a service area which includes a municipality even if its boundary does not extend beyond the boundaries of the county itself, is a regional pollution control facility. Townships have no role in the procedures for siting regional pollution control facilities though they may have zoning jurisdiction over certain nonregional pollution control facilities. (File No. 82-003)

County mental health boards

Private, for-profit extended care facilities which are housing former residents of state institutions operated by the Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disability do not fall under the authority of a county community mental health board unless the board has a contractual agreement with the private facility. The community mental health act gives a county power to regulate community facilities and to contract with private and public providers for services. But a "community mental health facility" means a facility provided by one of the designated governmental units or districts and does not include a private, for-profit, facility. However, a contractual agreement implies authority to review and monitor the activities of a private facility for which funds are provided. (File No. 82-002)

Education Block Grant Advisory Committee

A COMMITTEE to advise the State Board of Education on the allocation of federal education block grant funds to Illinois school boards and districts was appointed March 4 by Gov. James R. Thompson. The 1981 Omnibus Education Reconciliation Act combined nearly 30 federal education programs into one state block grant effective October 1. Estimates vary as to what Illinois' share of education block grant funds will be. The governor's office says the state will receive $28 million in its education grant. That figure, however, is significantly higher than the $21.1 million total grant estimated by the State Board of Education. Both figures are subject to change, since the congressional resolution providing the funding must be renewed or revised after March 31.

Members of the governor's Education Block Grant Advisory Committee who will help allocate Illinois' federal education grant — whatever its final amount — are:

Chairman Donald Muirheid, Decatur, a retired farmer; J. Maxey Bacchus, Chicago, business manager of the Chicago Board of Education; Kenneth L. Beasley, DeKalb, professor of education and assistant to the president of Northern Illinois University; Thomas L. Burroughs, Collinsville, an associate attorney with the St. Louis law firm of Herzog, Krai, Burroughs and Specter; Elizabeth M. Cleaver, a Peoria homemaker; Sen John A. Davidson (R., Springfield), minority spokesman of the Senate Elementary and Secondary Education Committee; Jerry G. Johnson, McClure, regional superintendent of schools, Alexander-Johnson-Massac-Pulaski-Union Counties School District; Louis Mervis, Danville, president of Mervis Industries; Alisa D. Murray, Springfield, a high school student and participant in the Executive High School Internship Program; Carol J. Schaddelee, Frankfort, teacher at Gompers Junior High School in Joilet; James W. Smith, Wheaton, regional superintendent of schools in the DuPage County Educational Service Area; Dr. Thomas E. Van Dam, Matteson, superintendent of schools. School District 151 in South Holland; Al B. Vanden Bosch, South Holland, assistant principal at Illiana Christian School in Lansing; Arlene B. Zielke, Chicago, full-time school volunteer.

40/May 1982/Illinois Issues