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S T A T E H O U S E I N S I D E R
THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY adjourned on May 31, 2001. While many skeptics doubted it was possible, the Fiscal Year 2002 budget was hammered-out in the final hours of the session by legislative leaders and the governor. The budget reflects a record $53 billion dollars, up from $49.2 billion dollars last fiscal year. Without question, the budget and the question of redistricting overshadowed consideration of almost every piece of legislation. The uncertainty of legislators' future districts made for a conservative legislative session as it related to total passage of bills. A total of 5,153 bills were introduced this year, the largest number of bill introductions in the last 10 years. The House introduced 3,629 bills, the Senate 1,524. Of these, 258 House bills and 282 Senate bills passed both chambers and have been sent to the governor for his consideration. The General Assembly has 30 days to send the engrossed bill to the governor, whereupon the governor has 60 days upon which to act. This passage rate represents approximately 11 percent of all bills introduced. Clearly, it was difficult for legislators to move legislation this year. House Leadership imposed an arbitrary limit of five bills per member that could be called for final passage, and this had a tremendous impact on the total number of House bills passed. It is first time in recent memory that the House passed fewer bills than the Senate even though the House introduced twice as many. MONEY FOR INITIATIVES One of the hotly debated topics for the budget was the inclusion of money for member initiatives. Park districts and forest preserves should contact members of the Illinois General Assembly with worthy projects. Note as well, that despite lawmakers' adoption of what was termed a "maintenance budget," containing little new money, schools received a substantial $230 million dollar increase in general state aid. A NEW MAP A final word on redistricting is that the House and Senate adopted a redistricting plan for Illinois congressional districts, which cuts back the number from 20 to 19, losing one district due to population shifts westward across the country. The new congressional redistricting plan effectively eliminated currently serving Congressman David Phelps from the 19th District by including a significant portion of his district within the strong foothold of Congressman Tim Johnson of Urbana. However, legislative leaders did not present a redistricting plan for the Illinois General Assembly before adjournment. Therefore, a Legislative Redistricting Commission will be appointed to attempt to develop and agree to a redistricting plan before September 1, 2001.
BILL WATCH RECAP IAPD tracked more than 514 bill introductions in the spring session. The bills are listed on the IAPD Web site (www.ILparks.org) for your review. Last action on all these bills can be seen through our link to the Illinois Legislative Information System. What follows is a recap of legislative action on bills of particular importance to the IAPD and IPRA during this session.
Bicyclists A long negotiating process ensued regarding this bill to protect bicyclists as well as units of local government, resulting in an amendment that all could live by except the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association. On May 4 the bill passed out of the Senate with a vote of 54-0-2. However the last action occurred on May 16 in the House Judiciary Committee, where an amendment to gut the bill failed. The motion to pass the bill out of committee then failed on a 6-2 vote, thus abruptly ending the months of negotiation that took place on this issue. Hearings on this and other tort reform issues will take place throughout the summer.
Bonding Authority As you know from reading this column, Senate bill 1171 extends the ability to issue a small portion of nonreferendum debt to the 16 park districts that did not receive relief from SB 368, which passed in 1995. The bill passed without amendment in the Senate in a vote of 37-1 2-6 and moved to the House, where a number of amendments were added providing tax cap relief to other units of local government including the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, the Cook County Forest Preserve, Lake County and Public Building Commissions. In the closing hours of the legislative session, the House took up this bill and acted to pass it with 12 | Illinois Parks and Recreation I S S U E S A N D I N S I G H T S F R O M T H E L E G A L / L E G I S L A T I V E S C E N E a narrow margin of 62 votes. SB 1171 then had to return to the Senate for concurrence or rejection of the aforementioned amendments. The bill was read into the record but the Senate adjourned immediately after passing the Illinois state budget. Currently, the bill is on the secretary's desk on order of concurrence and work will take place this summer in order to advance it during the fall veto session. Our thanks goes out to all of those state senators and representatives who stood with Illinois park districts in support of this important measure.
Criminal Backaround
Checks House Bill 1846, which seeks to clarify the criminal background checks conducted by park districts, fell victim to deadlines in the House, where it was held on third reading. Subsequent efforts took place to offer an alternative (an exemption only for employees under the age of 18 or those who have been rehired within a 12-month period upon whom a background check had already been completed), as an amendment, but it did not receive approval from the Rules Committee. Rep. Cross, whose legislation created this requirement during the year 2000, has indicated his commitment to continue to work toward clarifications to relieve park districts from this burden.
Consolidation Legislation to create a local Government Consolidation Commission passed out of House Committee but did not move further. The issue is fraught with inherent problems and the IAPD worked to see it held by its House sponsor.
Kids Share A coalition of youth advocate organizations collaborated this year on the Kids Share Endowment Authority and Program. The endowment would be funded by Tobacco Settlement proceeds, setting aside $50 million a year for a six-year period. The aggregated $300 million would then generate in perpetuity money to fund youth programs conducted by a variety of governmental (including park districts) and nonprofit organizations. This prudent use of Tobacco Settlement money caught the attention of many lawmakers, who gave it their enthusiastic support. While this bill did not advance in the Senate, the coalition will work throughout the summer to move it either in the fall veto session or the spring session. This coalition is comprised of IAPD, the Illinois Education Association, the Illinois Municipal League, Voices for Illinois Children, Fight Crime Invest in Kids, and others.
DNR Appropriations The Open Lands Trust was funded at $80 million with $40 million going for member initiatives ($10 million per legislative caucus). OSLAD received funding of $21,500,000.
Forest Preserves Forest preserves took an important first step in assisting the public in understanding referendum questions by seeking legislative authority which would permit a forest preserve to add additional information to the question, which would actually tell the voters how
July/August 2001 | 13 S T A T E H O U S E I N S I D E R the money would be used and whether or not there would be any restrictions on that use. The bill does not allow a rate increase over current statutory authority. It was sent to the governor on June 1.
IMRF This bill—which provides a program of group health benefits for retired employees and their dependents and survivors—is one of many proposed IMRF initiatives introduced this year. None moved forward and all will be the subject of meetings between the Illinois Municipal League and IMRF. IAPD will participate in these meetings.
License Plates This legislation created an Illinois license plate intended to fund model park district programs for youth and supplement scholarship monies provided by park districts. It was embraced enthusiastically by the House where it passed with 114 votes. It was held in the Senate and the content was amended onto HB 293, which includes authorization of 10 other special license plates including Gulf War Veterans, Hospice, Lions of Illinois, and Coal Mining. The fee was increased from an additional $27 to a cost-prohibitive level of $100 and then passed back over to the House. House members were very upset by this move and are seeking to pass language in the fall veto session which will reflect their original intent. These license plate initiatives are extremely important to the sponsoring organization and are not issued until the Illinois Secretary of State's Office receives a confirmation for 2,000 orders. It is this checkpoint that is the important stopgap to the issuance of such plates.
Open Meetings Act The Illinois Press Association identified as one of its major initiatives an amendment to the Open Meetings Act that requires public bodies to keep a verbatim recording of their closed meetings. While the legislation identified limited instances in which the verbatim recording must be released, the bill was fraught with difficulties. The chilling effect this would have on the open discussion of pubic bodies in closed session alone merits its defeat. The House passed the bill and while hearings were taken in the Senate, the bill did not moved forward. It is unlikely that the bill will pass without some agreement from local government.
Open Space One of the most exciting initiatives that IAPD and IPRA tackled this year was legislation to create an Illinois Land Preservation initiative. Illinois is experiencing tremendous development pressures and the rapid loss of open space. The House overwhelmingly approved this initiative with 83 yes-votes on a bill that had 65 co-sponsors. The bill was referred to the Senate Rules Committee where it has been held pending further consideration. This issue will be revisited during the spring legislative session, and our thanks go to every member of the General Assembly who supported this significant bill. HB 553 (Franks) This legislation did not move forward because it represented a reallocation of OSLAD dollars for grants that would not give local government complete ownership of open space. The bill remains in the House Rules Committee.
Property Transfer This would provide an important protection to local government in cases which involve a large tax objection or in situations where the district did not feel that they were aggressively being represented by the States Attorney's Office. It passed the Senate and was held in the House Rules Committee pending the review of other issues involving tax objections generally.
Property Transfer The bill provides that any park district owning and holding real estate is authorized to give, sell, or lease that property to the state of Illinois, with the state to consent, for public use. The bill was amended, passed both houses, and was sent to the governor on June 22.
SRAs This bill authorizes joint buying of real estate by gift, legacy, grant, or purchase for recreational programs for the handicapped by two or more park districts, or in counties under 300,000 people, by a park district and other local government. It passed both houses and was sent to the governor on June 7.
Taxpayer Refunds This bill would open up a Pandora's Box regarding tax objections. It provides that if a single taxpayer had a successful objection that was based on an error that occurred with regard to other taxpayers, the taxing district would have to pay the objector and each taxpayer similarly affected by the error. It has been held in the Senate based on the overwhelming concern from local governments regarding its negative fiscal impact.
Truth in Taxation The bill affects Cook County taxing districts, changing the date of the mandatory tax levy hearing to the first regularly scheduled meeting of the taxing district in the month of December rather than the first Monday in December. It passed both houses and has been sent to the governor.
Vehicle Code Amendments to park district criminal background checks were offered to this bill—which amends the Illinois Vehicle Code—at the closing hours of the session. They were not adopted prior to final action but will be the basis of revisiting this important park district issue in the fall veto session. •
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