Item

Category

Lead Organization

Comments

Language Submitted

A

Property Tax Extension Limitation Law

IAFPD

Amend property tax code in regards to PTELL exemptions for-tort liability, pension contributions, risk management programs, and insurance.

See SB 1252

B

Relief from the tax cap for Fire Districts & Non-Home Rule.

IFCA

PTEL was passed at a time when communities weren’t growing as fast as today.  And, though it may have been effective at the time of passage without undue burden on the governmental entities affected by it, when applied today, it makes it nearly impossible for special purpose districts to provide the appropriate service at essentially the same amount of revenue.  Further, resolve the conflicting downstate pension laws that require funding of the defined pension benefit plan vs. county level imposed tax cap limitation.  The law requires both, but the tax limitation act prevails at the local level. This does not alleviate the required funding of the pension. THIS IS A DIRECT CONFLICT IN STATE LAW!

C

Natural Gas/Utilities in HazMat/Spiller Pays

IAFPD

Add natural gas, gas liquids, and liquefied natural gas to the "hazardous material emergency response reimbursement act to provide for cost recovery subsequent to natural gas leaks caused by improper locating of the gas service lines or by careless actions of the contractor.  Include electrical transmission. Extra ordinary expenses can also be recovered.

See HB 1309

D

Amend Section 35 of the Property Tax Code to include Cook County

IAFPD

Fire protection districts in the notification of property tax appeals that exceed $100,000 and deletes a provision exempting counties with 3,000,000 or more inhabitants from certain notice requirements concerning tax objections

E

Fire Protection District Impact Fees

IAFPD

Enacts legislation to include Fire Protection Districts the statutory authority to implement and collect impact fees.

See HB 3396

See SB 3396

F

Ability for Fire Districts to apply Impact Fees for Land Acquisition and Facilities.

IFCA

Rapid growth within communities has caused the need for additional stations to be built.  Though some communities support their fire protection districts and have impact fee or developer donation language in their respective annexation agreements, this is not always the case.  Also, the annexation agreements only affect growth that comes from land outside of a particular community and doesn’t address in-fill development and/or developments that were approved prior to this legislation passing.  Without the fire protection districts having the legal authority to impose and collect impact fees, there will continue to be a gross inequity between one fire protection district and another and between fire protection districts and other governmental bodies in terms of the money they can collect to insure that adequate infrastructure (i.e., fire stations) is in place to protect their communities.

See HB 3396

See SB 3396

G

Time Off – Appointed Trustees

IAFPD

Amend Section 4 of the Fire Protection District Act (70 ILCS 705/4) by the addition of new subsection (h) to read as follows:

(h)  Any elected or appointed trustee of a fire protection district shall be entitled to absent himself or herself from any services or employment in which the trustee is then engaged or employed on the day and time of a meeting of the board of trustees of the fire protection district for the period of time during which the meeting is held and the necessary time required to travel to and from the meeting.  Any trustee availing himself or herself of this provision shall not, by reason thereof, be penalized in any manner by the trustee’s employer, provided, that the employer shall not be required to compensate the trustee during the time that the trustee is away from his or her employment on account of the meeting or time spent traveling to and from the meeting.  No employer shall refuse to grant to a trustee of a fire protection district the privilege granted by this Subsection, nor shall any employer penalize or otherwise discriminate against any trustee who avails himself or herself of the provisions of this Subsection, except as otherwise provided herein, and no employer will directly or indirectly violate the provisions of this Subsection.  A “meeting” for purposes of this Subsection shall have the same meaning as that provided under Section 1.02 of the Open Meetings Act (5 ILCS 120/1.02).

Yes

H

Trustee & Commissioners Financial Incentives

IAFPD

Amendment to the section pertaining to payments to trustees to allow (but not require) additional compensation for trustees who have completed qualified training programs.  Including labor/management component.

I

Increase Compensation Limits for Trustees

IAFPD

Amend section 6 to add an additional category or increase per annum for Fire Protection Districts with more than 30 paid fire fighters.

J

Technical Rescue Team reimbursement funding

IFCA, MABAS

Currently, there is no legislation for reimbursement of fees to Technical Rescue Teams. Cost of these types of rescues can be exorbitant.  Technical Rescue Teams are many times designated to an incident by utility companies.  Currently, there is no legislation to retrieve reimbursement.  Need exists for statutory legislation allowing TRT Teams and their parent fire agency to recover personnel, expendables and equipment costs.  Adopt legislation similar to Hazardous Materials Spiller Pays; however, no state funded contingency account is required.

See HB 1026

K

Create Funding Source for MABAS

IFCA, MABAS

Establish a Bill to generate the revenue needed to maintain MABAS so that the financial burden does not rest on the individual departments especially for those smaller departments/areas that may not have the same risk as others.  Needed funding level 1.7M.

L

Surcharge on boat permits in Illinois for Water Rescue Teams

IFCA

Charge a fee to the people of Illinois and other states who register a boat for service on an Illinois body of water. Illinois registered 384,504 watercraft in 2006. If a fee of $5 were assessed for each registration application and renewal. It would create a much needed funding mechanism for Special Operations Teams in Illinois which struggle to provide equipment and training for their members

M

Public/Private Partnerships for Mutual Aid

IFCA, MABAS

Local government does not have the resources including funding to handle all emergencies.  In some cases, private sector partnerships must be created in order for the local emergency service agencies to mitigate the emergency without cause for liability issues.  Local emergency responders who respond to all types of emergencies are covered under the Tort Immunity Law.  However, there are some emergencies that demand a response of special equipment such as cranes, drilling equipment, and the like which are owned and operated by private sector companies who are willing to assist but are open for lawsuits.  Further, in many rural areas of the state, the response time of the private contractor would be more expedient given the geographic proximity to the emergency scene versus mutual aid or a state asset, thus resulting in a more efficient incident management.

See HB 0922

N

Adjust current State Statutes for increases in Hourly personnel cost and apparatus.  Add language for Cost of living increase.

IFCA

Increase the rates for manpower and apparatus hourly rates from the current $35 per hour for personnel and $125 per hour for apparatus, as per limits of State law.  These rates have not been increased for many years. These rates should also have an escalator clause indexed by the CPI or another index.

O

EMT-B, EMT-I, or EMT-P Hiring requirements for Municipalities

IFCA

Legislation that is similar to that of the Districts, which would allow the Boards of Fire and Police Commissions to advertise and hire EMTB, EMTI, or EMTP as needed by the individual municipality.

See

70 ILCS 705/16.08b

P

Ability for Fire Districts to get 911 funding

IFCA

Current 9-1-1 funding is directed to Public Safety Answering Points (PSAP) and in many locations throughout the state; the funding is not shared with dispatch centers that need funding to support their capital improvement plan.  Legislation is needed to allocate a percentage of funds to the local dispatch centers to help support their plans.

Q

Provide a share of the Special Tax Allocation Funds from TIF Districts Enterprise Zones for Fire Districts

IFCA, IAFPD

To include a budget formula that provides a share of the Special Tax Allocation Funds, from a Tax Increment Financing District, for fire districts.  The formula should be based on a calculation similar to the school or library district calculations, found in 65 ILCS 5/11-74.4-3(q) 7.5 through 7.7, that determine the projected impact on the fire district by the increased number of housing units located within the fire district.  The formula should also consider other factors that may increase the demand for services such as, increases in the working population, increase in the hazards due to industrial or storage occupancy development, and increase is traffic due to retail development.

R

Mandatory health, safety and general welfare inspections of rental properties that are rented to College and University students.

IFCA

Home rule communities have the power to require these life safety inspections of rental properties under the current state statute, cities that have less than 25,000 in population, as non-home rule communities, do not.  The problem here is not a home rule or non-home rule situation, the problem is life safety for renters in communities that have higher than normal percentages of residential rental units.  In a university town we are dealing with a high percentage of college student age renters, who have less money, fewer options and are typically a less knowledgeable and sophisticated group of renters. With college age renters, we find a significant number of persons living in units that are substantially below any minimum standards and they do not know it or just think they have no other choice.  Younger renters are also less likely to understand their rights to have their dwelling unit meet minimum standards and it is easier for unscrupulous property owners to convince the students that they have to put up with unsafe conditions.

S

Legislation that will ban the sale of fake fire protection devices – felony conviction.

IFIA

Fire Protection Devices Neither Designed Nor Capable of Function. Any device or object that reasonably appears to be a smoke detector, sprinkler head, carbon monoxide alarm, heat detector or any other similar device, used for life safety or fire protection that is, in fact, neither designed nor capable of performing such life safety or fire protection function, shall be prohibited.  This legislation stemmed from a discovery that Target Stores were selling such objects throughout the State of Massachusetts.  Similar devices are sold nationwide.

T

Support of a resolution and a statute to support a nationwide ban on the sale of novelty cigarette lighters that resemble toys.

IFIA, IFSA, IFCA, IPFA

This proposal is needed to curb the use of novelty cigarette lighters by children.  Young children are not capable of differentiating between a toy and a fire tool.  Hundreds of novelty lighters that resemble toys are sold at stores across America.  These lighters do not meet existing child-resistant cigarette lighter safety standards. (16C.F.R., Part 1210).  Visit the EBay website for a firsthand look at lighters that resemble ordinary children’s toys.

U

Exclude volunteer firefighters from unemployment insurance

IAFPD

Exclude volunteer firefighters from unemployment insurance contributions to be made by the fire district for volunteers (Volunteers who receive no pay, reimbursement, or stipend as a member of the Volunteer Fire Department).

V

Increase Revenue Streams that are coming into the Fire Prevention Fund to be divided as by the formula currently present in the Act and does not affect future fees.

CFD, OSFM, IFSI

The Fire Prevention Fund (FPF) as defined in the Fire Investigation Act, is the sole source of State funding for firefighter training for the statutory State Fire Academy (Illinois Fire Service Institute) and for the City of Chicago Fire Department.  Only that portion of the FPF that is generated by the 1% fire insurance premium fee is allocated by formula (12.5%) to IFSI and (10%) to Chicago FD.  In recent years the demand for training associated with basic firefighter skills, homeland security, implementation of fire service mutual aid, creation of regional fire and emergency training facilities and high rise response has exponentially increase the demand for training courses and resources.  In 2007, IFSI received less than 30% of the total funding required to support its operations through the FPF, with the remainder provided through fees assessed on local fire departments and from State and federal grants.  Similarly, Chicago Fire Department (CFD) relies significantly upon City funding and federal grants to fully fund its training requirements.  Much of the grant funding that is associated with new homeland security tasks and DHS grants have been steadily decreasing annually.  This funding is the basis for specialized HAZMAT, technical rescue and incident command / NIMS training.   Federal DHS grants are expected to decrease further in the future.  Local departments simply cannot replace the lost federal grant funding for these teams.  Therefore, there is a real and continuing need to increase the annual State funding available to IFSI and CFD by providing alternative sources of funding either through the FPF or directly to IFSI and CFD to underwrite training costs for Illinois firefighters.  Any new source of FPF funding that is intended to be shared with IFSI and CFD by the 12.5% /10% formula must be explicitly added to the Fire Investigation Act.

W

Resolution in regards to Opticom issue to Attorney General

IFCA