Recommendations of the Governor’s Local Government Consolidation and Unfunded Mandates Task Force
Early in his first year in office, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner created a task force to study issues of local government consolidation as well as examine unfunded mandates in order to identify opportunities to streamline government and reduce costs to taxpayers. The Task Force, which was chaired by Lieutenant Governor Evelyn Sanguinetti, recently released a report which included several recommendations.
Caucus Position
The Metropolitan Mayors Caucus commends the Local Government Consolidation and Unfunded Mandates Task Force for its work. It concurs with the following recommendations from the Task Force’s Final Report:
- Protect the Intergovernmental Cooperation Act so local governments can continue to explore service sharing and consolidation through intergovernmental agreements;
- Encourage state agencies to incentivize consolidation and sharing of services, assets, personnel and function;
- Modernize newspaper public notice mandates;
- Restore the authority of municipalities and fire protection districts to determine manning standards (revoke P.A. 98-1151);
- Allow arbitrators to make existing financial condition the primary consideration during interest;
- Pass a constitutional amendment on unfunded state mandates;
- Request Governors to use amendatory veto power to insert “if economically feasible” language in any legislation authorizing new unfunded mandates; and
- Provide a process for local governments to exempt themselves from compliance with unfunded mandates when they determine it is not economically feasible to do so.
In addition to the above, the Mayors Caucus also supports the Task Force’s recommendations regarding the merger of downstate police and fire pension funds into a single pension investment authority as well as the clarification of the definition of “catastrophic injury” under the Public Safety Employee Benefits Act. Please see its positions on these issues as stated in issues “A” and “E” above.