Citing increasingly squeezed financial resources, the Du Page Mayors and Managers Conference has come out strongly in support of a statewide referendum proposal that could open the door to a constitutional amendment preventing the General Assembly and the governor from imposing unfunded state mandates on local governments.
Conference President John Geils, surrounded by a dozen mayors and several legislative candidates, said during a news conference Wednesday night that such a measure could hold down property taxes.
The Illinois State Mandates Act, passed in 1981, was designed as a means to help governments keep their costs and property tax bills down. It didn`t work.
Geils, Bensenville village president, said that since that time, the state has imposed 326 mandates-for items ranging from increased employee benefits to record-keeping and notification requirements-on local government at a cost of more than $190 million, virtually none of which the state has picked up.
Although this referendum proposal lacks teeth, it could lead to a constitutional amendment that would spur the legislature to stop approving state mandates without providing the funds to cover them.
”A constitutional amendment would limit the actions of the Illinois General Assembly in a way that current state law cannot,” Geils said. ”Since most collar county municipalities operate under the property tax cap, it`s more important than ever that the state not impose new unfunded mandates on us.”