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An Aurora City Council panel has endorsed the 2024 legislative goals of the DuPage Mayors and Managers Conference, of which Aurora is a member.
The Rules, Administration and Procedures Committee recently voted 5-0 to back the legislative goals of the conference for the coming year. The goals are developed by the organization to lobby state legislators on local government issues.
The full City Council will consider endorsing the goals later this month.
The goals of the conference are somewhat a list of favorites endorsed by local government each year.
One of the main ones is restoring the Local Government Distributive Fund to its full funding of 10% as was established when the state income tax was established in 1969.
That fund comes from state income tax revenues, and its money is distributed to local counties and municipalities.
Until January 2011, cities received 10% of those tax revenues. That year, there was a temporary increase in state income tax rates, and the percentage of tax revenue allocated to the distributive fund for local counties and municipalities went down to 6%.
In January 2015, the local share of the state income tax increased to 8% when the higher income tax rates declined.
The state income tax was permanently increased eventually. The Local Government Distributive Fund share is now at 6.06% for individual income tax collections and 6.845% for corporate income tax collections.
It is still lower than the original 10%, and according to information from the DuPage Mayors and Managers Conference, restoring it would “allow local elected and appointed officials to invest in their communities where it is needed most.”
Things local government would use the money for include roads, bridges and sidewalks; public safety, including police training and body cameras; snow removal; pensions; social services; forestry; stormwater management; and lead service line replacement.
Another goal for the legislative session is consolidation of public safety pension fund assets. Local government wants public pensions, which it is required to fund, to be protected by preventing further Tier 2 pension “sweeteners” for police, fire and the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund.
The goals also include several items regarding Freedom of Information Act rules and Illinois Open Meetings Act requirements.
One of those is allowing public meetings to be held remotely at the discretion of local officials - opening up more times meetings can be held online.
Alex Voigt, deputy chief of staff in Aurora’s mayor’s office, said loosening restrictions on when meetings can be held remotely would help the city with its many local boards and commissions.
It is difficult sometimes to get meeting times for these different boards, and allowing remote meetings could make it easier, she said.
“It would be helpful,” she said.
The conference also is looking for adding exemptions to Freedom of Information disclosure of automatic license plate readers and “addressing burdensome (Freedom of Information Act) requests for police body camera footage of arrests.”