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Judicial Rulings



Colleges must pay what state did not on veterans' scholarships



A November 23 decision by the Illinois Supreme Court will force Chicago's community colleges to pick up the tab, amounting to $760,000, for state-mandated veterans' scholarships paid in 1982 and 1983.

In those years the state legislature appropriated about 50 percent of the funds needed for the program. The City Colleges of Chicago argued that the State Mandates Act (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1983, ch. 85, sec. 2201 et seq.) would entitle them to full reimbursement even though full appropriation was not provided. The high court ruled that the Mandates Act was enacted five years after the underfunded payment and was not intended to be retroactive. It pointed out that the governor had reduced the scholarship appropriation by amendatory veto and noted this in his veto messages. Thus both he and the legislature intended that the colleges pay for part of the program.

The court also said that a 1986 law transferring administration of the scholarships from the Department of Veterans Affairs to the Illinois State Scholarship Commission is not retroactive. Its purpose was to assure that full reimbursement to the colleges for veterans' scholarships would be sought "in the future" (as emphasized by the court) through supplemental appropriations (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1986 Supp., ch. 122, sec. 30 — 15.7d). The law was passed after complaints that the Department of Veterans Affairs refused to ask for more money to pay for the scholarships.

Justice Daniel Ward wrote the unanimous opinion (Justice Joseph F. Cunningham not participating) in Board of Trustees v. Burris (118 Ill. 2d 465).            F. Mark Siebert.


February 1988 | Illinois Issues | 19



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