Local Government Consolidation Report Issued

A press release from Governor Bruce Rauner:

Local Government Consolidation and Unfunded Mandates Task Force Issues Final Report to Governor

Task force makes 27 recommendations for streamlining local government, empowering communities & saving taxpayer dollars

OAK BROOK – Illinois Lieutenant Governor Evelyn Sanguinetti today formally presented Governor Bruce Rauner with the Local Government Consolidation and Unfunded Mandates Task Force’s final report.

“Part of reforming and turning around Illinois includes empowering local communities. This report shows the efficiencies and inefficiencies within local governments and provides concepts on how to give the people of Illinois more control over their future and their tax dollars,” Governor Rauner said.

“I thank the Lt. Governor and the Local Government Consolidation and Unfunded Mandates Task Force for their hard work and dedication to the people of Illinois.”

According to the US Census of Government, Illinois has more local units of government than any other state in the nation at 6,963. Illinois also has the second-highest effective property tax rate in the nation.

Evelan Sanguinetti

Evelan Sanguinetti

“This report is the culmination of an 11-month effort of the Task Force joining together in support of proposals to structurally reform state and local government, and get Illinois back on track,” said Illinois Lt. Governor Evelyn Sanguinetti.

“As a mother of three, I want my kids to live in a better Illinois. I want them to live in a state that tackles its fiscal and structural issues head-on, with real reform. I hope our leadership in the General Assembly puts politics aside and considers the needed reforms in this report.”

On February 13, 2015, Governor Bruce Rauner created the Task Force on Local Government Consolidation and Unfunded Mandates.

Its charge was to find efficiencies and ways to streamline local government functions to save taxpayer dollars.

The Task Force convened 16 meetings across the state and conducted a comprehensive review of state laws pertaining to local governments and school districts.

The final report includes a study on unfunded mandates and opportunities to streamline or eliminate governmental bodies and schools districts, and 27 Task Force endorsed recommendations.

The Task Force endorsed 27 recommendations which resulted from the testimony of 33 experts representing government associations, nonprofit think tanks, researchers, and state agencies.

The report can be found here.

Recommendations can be found on pages 11-16.  Unfortunately, they are copy protected, so I can’t copy and paste them.  I have asked for a more friendly version.


Comments

Local Government Consolidation Report Issued — 4 Comments

  1. I briefly read the report, long don’t ya,know.

    Recommending that the county board can consolidate on it’s own is nonsense.

    Only the,voters should have the final say, through petition them by ballot.

  2. The 406 page report is searchable but in some format that does not allow easy cut and paste unless it’s optimized through Adobe Acrobat Pro DC or some other tool.

    Here is the official name of the report.

    “Delivering Efficient, Effective, and Streamlined Government to Illinois Taxpayers

    Final Report Submitted by:
    Task Force on Local Government Consolidation and Unfunded Mandates

    In consultation with:
    Office of the Lieutenant Governor, Evelyn Sanguinetti
    and
    Northern Illinois University, Center for Government Studies

    Approved by the Task Force on December 27, 2015.”

    The included letter from Lieutenant Governor Evelyn Sanguinetti to Governor Bruce Rauner is dated December 15, 2015.

    The included letter from Norman Walzer, PhD, Senior Research Scholar and Project Director to Lieutenant Governor Evelyn Sanguinetti is also dated December 15, 2015.

    Members of the Task Force:

    Lt. Governor Evelyn Sanguinetti (Chair)
    State Representative Mark Batnick
    State Representative Tom Demmer
    State Representative Jack Franks
    State Representative Emanuel Chris Welch
    State Senator Dan Duffy
    State Senator Linda Holmes
    State Senator Dale Righter
    State Senator Martin Sandoval
    Honorable Michael Bigger
    Honorable Brad Cole
    Honorable Dan Cronin
    Honorable Karen Darch
    Honorable Warren Dixon III
    Honorable John Espinoza
    Honorable Char Foss-Eggemann
    Honorable M Hill Hammock
    Honorable Karen Hasara
    Honorable Mark Kern
    Honorable Rev. James T Meeks (resigned)
    Honorable George Obernagel
    Honorable Dr. Darlene Ruscitti
    Honorable Steffanie Seegmiller
    Honorable Ryan Spain

    Non voting Task Force members
    Honorable Jeffrey Aranowski
    Honorable Clayton Frick
    Honorable Paul Kersey
    Honorable Andrew Perkins
    Honorable Hans Zigmund

    +++++++++

    Here is an strange comment in the report by Chuck Vaughn of the Illinois Association of Fire Protection Districts on page 332 of the report.

    “The fire district pension plans by and large are doing just fine, so passing regulations to increase the amount of observance for pension plans is not needed in all cases.”

    What is he talking about, observance for pension plans.

    What is observance?

    What is he talking about, the fire district pension plans by and large are doing just fine?

    Their overall funding level is very poor, as indicated in financial reporting in the Illinois Comptroller Data Warehouse and the Illinois Department of Insurance Public Pension Division and the financial statements of the pension funds.

    So by and large they are not doing just fine.

    Very few are 100% funded.

    Many are not even 80% funded.

    A lot of fire and police think their pensions are better funded than they really area, and that includes some of the union leaders, so the comment sadly is not all that surprising.

  3. Here is the URL to the report.

    http://www.illinois.gov/ltg/issues/localgovernments/Documents/Local%20Government%20Consolidation%20and%20Unfunded%20Mandates%20Task%20Force%20Final%20Report.pdf

    Here is the path to the report.

    http://www.illinois.gov > Agencies > Lt. Governor, Office of the LTGOV > Issues > Local Government > Local Government Consolidation and Unfunded Mandates Task Force final report

    The report is in response to Illinois Executive Order 2015-15, which was, Executive Order Initiating Consolidation of Local Governments and School Districts, and Eliminating Unfunded Mandates

    +++++++++++

    The biggest unfunded mandates, legislative pension benefit hikes, are not explored in depth in the report.

    However, they are covered.

    Page 132 of the report, amongst other areas.

    Unfunded Mandates – Pension

    13. Proposal: Pension benefit levels should be adjusted to local financial capacity rather than setting requirements statewide by giving local governments control over the pension benefit levels set for their employees.

    Submitted by: Municipalities that participated in the NIU-CGS Survey.

    Reasoning: Public pension costs were identified as the most costly and burdensome unfunded mandates placed on municipalities in the State of Illinois.

    14. Proposal: Pension benefit levels should be adjusted to local financial capacity rather than setting
    requirements statewide by forming an independent, state-level commission that determines local
    benefit levels, similar to the procedures used by the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund (IMRF).

    Submitted by: Municipalities that participated in the NIU-CGS Survey.

    Reasoning: Public pension costs were identified as the most costly and burdensome unfunded mandates placed on municipalities in the State of Illinois.

    15. Proposal: Reduce pension costs by moving toward a defined-contribution pension model (e.g.,
    40l(K)), possibly under a two-tiered model where current employees remain on their current
    defined-benefit plans.

    Submitted by: Municipalities that participated in the NIU-CGS Survey.

    Reasoning: Public pension costs were identified as the most costly and burdensome unfunded
    mandate placed on municipalities by the State of Illinois.

    16. Proposal: Consolidate public safety pension funds in the suburbs of Chicago and the rest of the
    state into a single fund such as the IMRF.

    Submitted by: Municipalities that participated in the NIU-CGS Survey.

    Reasoning: Public pension costs were identified as the most costly and burdensome unfunded
    mandate placed on municipalities by the State of Illinois.

  4. NIU-CGS Survey

    NIU = Northern Illinois University

    CGS = Center for Government Studies

    http://cgs.niu.edu

    ++++++++++++

    Page 70 of the 406 page Local Government Consolidation and Unfunded Mandates Task Force final report begins a discussion of the so called NIU-CGS survey.

    As a side bar, NIU-CGS does surveys for various entities so it would have been nice to have a more specific reference than simply NIU-CGS survey.

    I. Unfunded Mandates Survey

    State-imposed unfunded mandates are regularly discussed in the Illinois General Assembly, but rarely acted upon due to differences in opinion on what constitutes an unfunded mandate and the politics surrounding an unfunded mandate’s authorization.

    Understanding the political sensitivity of this topic, the Office of the Lt. Governor determined it best to solicit the assistance of an independent third party to ensure an accurate accounting of cost and scope of unfunded mandates would be provided to the Illinois General Assembly and Governor.

    In order to compile the comprehensive data, Lt. Governor Sanguinetti collaborated with NIU-CGS to spearhead an unfunded mandate survey to identify the most costly unfunded mandates for local units of government and school districts.

    This section outlines the findings of the NIU-CGS survey.

    In summary, the NIU-CGS Survey solicited more than 500 local governmental units including
    municipalities, counties, townships, fire protection districts, park districts, community college districts and school districts to paint a comprehensive picture of the burden of unfunded mandates in Illinois.

    A bottom-up approach, the research process gathered basic information through a survey on unfunded
    mandates perceived as costly and burdensome by a large group of local government leaders and asked
    them to prioritize the mandates.

    These units of government then worked with their respective professional associations to create a list of mandates for the Task Force to review (Figure 2).

    Figure 2. Project Flowchart (see page 72 of the 406 page document).

    The report then goes into more detail.

    ++++++++

    All of this is nice, but the bottom line is we have as of the end of 2014 a $158 Billion unfunded pension liability problem (it’s actually larger because that doesn’t include mass transit) in Illinois.

    That’s our # 1 problem.

    Why get distracted by all these other items?

    The message isn’t even out about our biggest problem.

    Actually, that is our biggest problem right now.

    No good messaging on pensions.

    The unions own pension messaging.

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