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Q&A Interview

An interview with Vicki Thomas

It's too bad that people who have been around state government a while don't know exactly what the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules (JCAR) does. The committee is charged with a vital role: As state agencies like the Department of Public Health write rules to implement state laws, JCAR double- checks the rules to make sure they're clear, complete and fall within the laws' intent. So JCAR can make the difference between lenient regulations on certain types of businesses and strict, costly ones. Vicki Thomas is JCAR's executive director, and previously was on staff with the Senate Democrats for nearly two decades. She says everyone from legislative staffers to lobbyists have told her they're amazed when they team what JCAR does.

Q: Exactly what do you do?
A: It's been interesting for me to see what happens after legislation gets signed by the governor. Almost everyone assumes that when it's signed it's done with. But now I realize that a good part of what actually happens in determining how a law affects the public happens here. I like the negotiating we do with state agencies when we have a problem with a rule they've written. In the General Assembly, when you find something wrong with a statute, it could take nine months, a year, two years to change it. In some cases it takes 20 years to change. I remember back when I was a youth on staff in the General Assembly, we were celebrating something like the 20th annual attempt to enact public employee collective bargaining in Illinois. It takes a long time. But at this level you can sit down with the person who is making decisions on the other end, you point out problems and you get solutions. It's quicker, more expeditious.

Q: What's an example of the rule-writing you deal with?
A: Recently we had a situation where the Illinois Student Assistance Commission (ISAC) had to write rules regarding some veterans' grants they gave out. The law that was passed says the grant could go toward covering tuition, some specific fees and "other fees." It was up to ISAC to figure out what "other fees" should be covered. It turns out, a lot of veterans were majoring in aeronautics, and these grants were being used to cover some major fees, like for airplane rentals. ISAC felt they had to go back and redefine what fees would be covered, and these rental fees were too expensive to keep covering. That decision is going to make a difference to a lot of people in terms of what they're going to major in. We looked at what ISAC did, but the law does leave it up to ISAC to make those decisions. So in this case, ISAC had the flexibility to decide what fees should be covered.

Q: What are among the major challenges of your job?
A: One challenge has been to try to make sure that conflict only arises over major issues. There was a long history of this agency being the enemy of the administration — the cold, outside eye looking at the way (the agencies) were writing things. But 90 percent of the time what they write is fine. Most of the time we're looking to make sure nothing's missing.

Q: What's the main thing you're looking for in reviewing a state agency's proposed rules?
A: Ultimately, it comes down to: "What does it do to people? What kind of hoops does it make them jump through? Is it potentially damaging to someone's business or life?"

Q: If a rule is potentially damaging, can JCAR change it?
A: We can't go back and second-guess decisions the General Assembly made as a whole. We don't decide that an issue is good or bad. We decide whether a rule was written within statutory authority and legislative intent. And we are interested in the economic impact of rule making: Is there a less onerous regulatory way of accomplishing the same thing? Can we accomplish this without putting this burden on the public? Then we go to the agency and present our concerns. Every week I have someone who comes up to me after we've worked through a problem they've had, and they say, "You know, I didn't realize you guys were here. And I didn't realize it was actually the rule that was causing the problem and not the law." When it comes down to what makes a businessman have to put a certain awning on his store, or what kind of gravel he had to put in his parking lot, that depends on the rules that are written by state agencies.

Vicki Thomas Q: How much input does the public have when agencies are writing rules?
A: An agency that is proposing a rule is supposed to be informing its affected public. So if you're on its mailing list or are its licensee, they'll tell you. The administrative agencies set timetables of when they'll hear the public. Sometimes they'll hold public hearings, and in the past these public hearings have not always been exactly what some of us would picture when we hear the term public hearing. In some instances, someone's walked into a room, plugged in a microphone and tape recorder, and said, "Anyone who would like to can come talk into this microphone and we'll tape it." And if someone tried to ask questions about the proposed rules, the person would say, "I'm sorry, I'm just a secretary. I don't know anything about this." Whether the agency's heart and soul goes into truly eliciting good public dialogue is up to each agency.

Q: Does the public have any second chance when JCAR reviews the rules an agency has written?
A: We invite public comment at any time, and are dependent upon it to a certain extent. There are only five people on our staff to review all rules written by state government. We don't always know how these rules are going to affect the plumber sitting in Mattoon. So we are really dependent upon that plumber to come and let us know if a proposed rule, or even an existing rule, is destroying his way of life. So we look into every phone call, every letter. �

12/July 1994/Illinois Issues