The Rostrum By DAVID OWEN, Executive Director North Central Illinois Council of Governments

The plight of regional planning agencies

WHILE THIS forum focuses largely on happenings and issues at the State-house in Springfield and City Hall in Chicago, let it not be overlooked that a variety of regional service organizations are also being greatly affected by events in Washington and Springfield and are struggling to adapt to the new reality. The state's regional planning agencies fall within this category.

Regional planning agencies go under various names, forms and sizes in Illinois. Some are called regional planning commissions, others planning and development districts, and yet others regional councils or councils of governments. These variations result primarily from the different pieces of enabling legislation and the intent of local officials. These planning agencies also range in their jurisdictions from single-county regional planning commissions to large six- and seven-county areas with some even overlapping state boundaries. At latest count, 68 Illinois counties participate in multicounty regional planning agencies, and at least 81 of Illinois' 102 counties have some sort of staffed planning capacity. And to top off all this diversity, regional planning agencies vary greatly in their functions and capacities.

For example, the activities of our rather small agency during the past year have included: assisting localities to obtain financing of needed water and sewer facilities; revising municipal and county zoning ordinances; administering housing rehabilitation programs on behalf of localities; setting up a rural transportation system; encouraging the preservation of prime farmlands; promoting job training programs and economic development; and much more. Differences in programming depend upon the concerns of local officials, the area's service infrastructure and the ability to obtain funding.

Given all this diversity, one could reasonably wonder what regional planning agencies have in common. In general, the thread of commonality is that they were formed and are maintained by officials of local governments, and they provide expertise and assistance services to those local governments and their residents. These services have frequently taken the form of trying to maximize the return of federal and state dollars to the localities. While this role served local governments well during the era of multitudinous assistance programs, the onslaught of the "new federalism" presages many changes and difficulties for regional planning agencies.

On the surface, it might appear that regional planning agencies would fare well under the new federalism concept. After all, it espouses a return of many programs and responsibilities to the local level. Being creations of local governments and acting as liaison between these constituent local governments and the state and federal government, regional planning agencies offer a natural platform from which to help local officials gear up for effective utilization of the new block grant initiatives. Indeed, many other states, such as Michigan and Nebraska in the Midwest, are doing exactly this by relying upon their network of regional planning agencies to coordinate and channel block grant

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resources. Such is not the case in Illinois.

The omission of a systematic role tor regional planning agencies in the Male's block grant strategy results from several factors, some of which relate to the history of regional planning in Illinois. Although many regional agencies were established with the encouragement and blessing til slate officials, Illinois has not hacked up this moral support with financial support. Only two large metropolitan agencies, created by state legislation for the Chicago and St. l.ouis Metro-East areas, have received regular state funding assistance, and that assistance is rapidly diminishing. In contrast, many other states do provide support lo their regional agencies. Neither has Illinois ever accepted the concept of substate districting, as have some neighboring states. Although an attempt in this direction was undertaken in the early days of the Walker administration, it was dropped after the specter of "regionalism" was raised. Consequently, about 20 counties do not have any type of planning agency, and a patchwork pattern of large and small agencies exists over the rest of the state. This situation has in turn provided state officials with a convenient excuse for excluding regional planning agencies from their plans on the grounds that such agencies do not provide a uniform network thoughout Illinois.

To further complicate matters, state agencies have generally been willing to pass federal dollars through to regional agencies (after extracting enough for their own administrative expenses). Now in these tight times, state agencies appear to be less willing to pass funds through. One suspects that state agencies themselves are experiencing a reduction in federal funds and have large staffs to maintain. A natural organizational response to adversity is to fend for your own people.

So what shape are the state's regional planning agencies in? Many federal planning programs have already been eliminated or are about to end. State funding has been nonexistent for most agencies and is being cut for those few which are receiving state monies. With the state's economic outlook and budgetary constraints, the prospects for state aid are equally grim. Decisions to raise the level of local government contributions to regional agencies must be made collectively by participating governments. While some governing bodies have bitten the bullet by raising local government assessments, local governments are in no shape to fill the void by assuming the entire burden. In many cases, even a doubling of local government revenues would be insufficient to sustain an agency's operation.

One regional planning agency has already closed its doors and others are facing similar prospects this summer and fall. Such prospects are particularly true for the smaller rural agencies which have limited resources and programs. The survival of many will depend on the perseverance, creativity and flexibility of their directors, staff and local officials in finding ways to continue. The large urban agencies will experience cutbacks but have the wherewithal to continue operation, albeit in diminished fashion.

Illinois contains more units of local government than any other state. Many of these governmental bodies are small and have little capacity to deal with complex problems and issues on their own. Now we have a federal administration proposing the turning back of programs and responsibilities to local governments. Yet these regional agencies, which can best help local governments to understand and accept their new responsibilities and to design and implement programs to meet this challenge, are threatened by extinction through — well, indifference. Of course, irony abounds in governmental relations as well as in life in general.

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