Cities Gearing Up For National Unfunded Mandates Week

October 24-28 is the time for your city or town to take part in this year's continuation of the "No Unfunded Mandates" campaign throughout the United States.

The National League of Cities and state municipal leagues across the country will be providing Action Kits for municipal officials to plan and carry out local events. NLC and the state leagues also will take a lead role in generating news media attention to federal and state mandates as major issues in this year's elections.

"We want to build on the success and carry forward the momentum we generated last year with National Unfunded Mandates Day on October 27th," said NLC Executive Director Don Borut. "We believe the elected leaders of our cities and towns, with their first-hand perspective about the impacts of unfunded mandates, are the essential link in making citizens and candidates aware of what's at stake for each community."

Last year's campaign produced many stunning examples of costly, and often senseless, mandates that revealed the pervasive and bewildering scope of unfunded mandates. The protests ignited by those events had an impact rarely seen in Congress. On both sides of Capitol Hill, legislation began moving with bipartisan support to revise some existing federal mandates and to develop a "truth in legislating" approach for any new proposals.

"Good intentions don't count if there isn't definitive action and rigorous followthrough," said Borut. "This campaign cannot end until we have real safeguards to make sure Washington will stop trying to solve problems by simply passing their costs along to us."

For the past three years in the nationwide survey of city fiscal conditions, municipal budget directors have identified unfunded mandates as one of the top three adverse factors affecting local finances. Unfunded mandates also topped the 1994 NLC opinion survey of elected municipal officials as the situation that has deteriorated most over the past five years.

The week-long time period for "No Unfunded Mandates" events is intended to provide an opportunity for every city and town to get involved in this year's effort.

"We know it's a universal issue. We know there's a story waiting to be told anyplace a candidate campaigns, a reporter visits or a community forum is held. We want to help make that happen, and we'll try to make it happen however we can," said Borut. •

September 1994 / Illinois Municipal Review / Page 13