In November of 1992, the General Assembly, through an advisory referendum, asked the voters of Illinois if they wanted the chance to vote on an Unfunded Mandates Constitutional Amendment. Over 80%, or three million voters said YES! The people of Illinois have yet to be given that opportunity.

Last year, the Legislature came close to making that decision, but the proposed amendment was defeated by a narrow margin in the Senate.

During their 82nd Annual Conference in September, the membership of the Illinois Municipal League made the passage of an Unfunded Mandates Constitutional Amendment its top priority in 1996. The process of drafting the legislation and finding sponsorship has already begun. Because of negotiations on some of the language in the proposal, prospects appear somewhat brighter, at least to the optimist. However, the League and many of its members believe the legislative calendar for this Spring will be limited, and getting this bill to be considered at all will be the first hurdle.

Why is this issue so important to local governments, including school districts? I believe there are at least three basic reasons, with a number of others listed below.

Unfunded mandates take away local decision-making. When the "first claim on a municipality's finances must go to pay for an unfunded mandate, that community then has less discretion in paying for vital services and programs expected by its constituents.

Unfunded mandates cause local taxes to go up in many cases. In 1992, the Illinois Department of Commerce and Community Affairs conducted a lengthy study to determine the statewide cost of unfunded mandates. It was not possible to put a dollar figure on all the mandates affecting the 5,739 widely varying types of local governments in Illinois. That figure, by the way, excludes school districts and community college districts. DCCA was able to identify 237 Public Acts, which created 68 Organization and Structure Mandates; 49 Due Process Mandates, 30 Service Mandates; 51 Tax Exemption Mandates and 128 Personnel Mandates. The cost that could be estimated was slightly over $200 million, less than the State's participation of $11 million, leaving a local government cost of $190 million.

Unfunded mandates are a contradiction of existing state law. The State Mandates Act was created to regulate mandates. However, the practice of the Legislature has been to waive the Mandates Act whenever deemed appropriate, sometimes, but not always, to satisfy special interest legislation.

All of this is not to say that there hasn't been some improvement by the General Assembly in passing along unfunded mandates. The situation has improved. Governor Jim Edgar is a staunch supporter of local government on the issue of unfunded mandates, and has vetoed legislation when he felt it would pose too great a financial burden on local governments. But the issue will remain critical for us at the local level. The Constitutional Amendment being sought is an effort to prevent laws which may be passed in the future by another General Assembly and Administration from becoming unfunded mandates.

Local governments receive other unfunded mandates which come through the regulatory authority given to many state and federal agencies. The effects of these regulatory changes are insidious, and tend to slowly layer on increased costs for doing business for local units of government. For example, when more and more agencies must sign off on various construction plans and projects, the cost of those projects is driven up, usually by the need for additional engineering and legal services.

In the City of Jacksonville, we were forced to close our compost site because we felt our citizens would not want to pay the increased costs which would be re-

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Leaders of state government have long recognized the impact of federal government mandates on their costs, and they are fighting the same battle as we. We are all concerned about the budget dialogue in Washington, and the outcome which has the potential for shifting more costs to state and local governments.

It is much too idealistic to hope for recognition of the "partnership" which should exist between our local, state and federal governments. We are, after all, working for the same constituents.

The federal government finds itself with an immense deficit, in part, because too many programs and laws were created without the financial means to pay for them. Local government leaders do not have, nor do they desire, the authority to do that. Our goal is to pay for the services we provide, but without being over burdened by mandates which cause us to divert our "core" income.

Local governments are charged with providing vital public services to our citizens: i.e. police and fire protection, roads and streets, utilities and emergency services, just to name a few. And, that should be our focus, but unfunded mandates draw our funding away from those services. Many of those local governments, non home rule in Illinois for example, have been given limited authority by the state to raise new revenue, i.e. taxes. That being the case, we are asking the General Assembly to allow the voters of Illinois to decide the issue of limiting the Legislature's ability to pass along unfunded mandates to us, without providing the funding to pay for them. We're asking our representatives in Springfield, and Washington as well, to recognize the financial impact that many of their decisions have on local governments. And to further recognize that when local government is paying for those mandates, we become less able to fund vital services which our constituents expect and deserve.

The people of Illinois have spoken on this issue once before, and they should have the right to decide it once and for all. Four out of five voters in 1992 said they wanted the opportunity to vote on a Constitutional Amendment. They should be given that opportunity. •

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