Over the course of the summer, a number of municipalities and the Illinois Municipal League spent a great deal of time and resources seeking an amendatory veto of Senate Bill 3507 which would have imposed significant restrictions on municipal authority to charge a fair and reasonable water and sewer connection “tap-on” fee to new users. The good news is that, in late August, Governor Quinn issued an amendatory veto to the Bill removing the municipal language from the legislation. However, in exchange for this amendatory veto, the Illinois Municipal League and other parties agreed to commit to work on new legislation providing for statewide connection charges and standards.
The IML has put together a task force to work on developing such new legislation in a manner that would protect municipal interests. They have asked Rich Flood of Zukowski, Rogers, Flood & McArdle to serve on this committee because of his extensive experience with the development of impact fees in this state. The Committee has been asked to review possible legislation to address this issue. The initial drafts of legislation presented to the committee for discussion have been as problematic as the vetoed legislation. However, the committee is working to prepare responses and alternative proposals and will meet with the sponsor to try to develop more reasonable legislation that addresses the needs of municipalities and that would allow them to recover their costs from new users to their systems.
We invite you to get in touch with us if you have specific concerns or suggestions about what you believe would be a reasonable approach to regulating water and sewer impact fees if they must be regulated at all. Please contact either Ruth Schlossberg ([email protected]) or Rich Flood ([email protected]) with your suggestions.
