Good afternoon.

Today is March 3rd, 2026, and I call the Lake County Legislative Committee meeting to order at 1 p.m.

In addition to being able to attend in person, remote attendance has been made available to the public via Zoom.

And the link in the agenda meeting is being recorded through Zoom for County Board Rules and the Open Meetings Act.

Attendance via remote means is permitted for qualifying reasons.

As long as the majority of committee members are physically partisan, and we've been notified in advance by members Schlick and Roberts that they request to participate electronically due to well illness for Member Roberts and work for Member Schlick.

Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Could we have a roll call, please?

Vice Chair Compass?

Here.

Member Frank?

Here.

Member Hunter?

Here.

Member Roberts.

Here.

Member Schlitt.

Here.

Member Bolitzik?

Here.

Chair Wasek.

Here.

Okay.

I believe we have a quorum.

Uh do we have any addenda to the agenda?

Uh we do not.

Do we have any public comment?

The public comment today.

Okay, thank you.

Remarks.

Um, I want to thank everyone who was able to accompany us to Washington for the annual NACO legislative conference last week.

Uh, special thanks to uh Matt, Ruth Ann and Chris Blanning from staff, and Mara Paul, Gina, and Jennifer.

And despite a massive shut uh shutdown that was that just kind of kind of came in the wake of this big snowstorm.

We were still able to meet with uh uh the staffs of Reps uh Chikowski and Quigley.

Um, as usual, Representative Bill Foster met with us in person.

Uh, and we're hoping to meet with Representative Brad Schneider and his staff at a later date.

Uh while we were able to lobby for many of our county's priorities, such as health care and infrastructure funding, uh, the future in many areas such as Medicaid remains uncertain.

But one bright spot was meeting with Senator Dick Durbin, who's been a great friend of Lake County over the year years, and he's retiring after 30 years, and we thank him for his great service.

And he still says he's working on attainable housing and data center regulation, so that's great.

Uh, once again, thanks for all who attended.

Uh, we know it always makes a difference when we can talk to our Lake County delegation and uh all are you all of you are invited next year.

So thanks again.

And hopefully you can join us for our Seiko trip to Springfield next month.

See uh Matt and Jolanda for details.

Okay, very good.

Moving on to new business.

Uh, could I have a motion and a second for the consent agenda to approve the minutes?

Uh motion by Jessica, second by Kevin.

All those in favor.

Aye.

Aye.

Motion carries.

Thank you.

On to the regular agenda featuring Mike and Derek from Springfield and what's happening there.

Gentlemen, hello again.

Hello, Chairman.

How are you?

Hey, Mike.

So I will be brief today for no other reason than as is tradition in the second year of a general assembly.

Everything is historically backloaded until after election day.

Let me give you just a brief example to illustrate that.

There's about 700 bills eligible for consideration before the Illinois Senate today, or rather in committee.

About 120 of them are eligible for consideration today.

There's about 275 proposals under the jurisdiction of the Senate Executive Committee.

And executive committee in the House and Senate is comprised of leadership members.

Nine bills are eligible for potential consideration this week.

So as is historic, as is tradition, a slow start, but it will pick up after March 17.

A few weeks ago, Governor Pritzker proposed this fiscal year 2027 budget.

And he solved for a 2.2 billion dollar deficit without oversimplifying.

Revenues that were expected to be generated a few months ago were raised by about a billion dollars, and total expenditures were lowered by about a billion dollars to solve for most of that issue.

Now the budget obviously remains tight.

No great secret there.

Federal government actions, Medicaid costs, rising pension costs, and depending on what happens in the markets because of other international interests, if the markets fall, obviously, local and state pension contributions will rise in the short term.

There is small revenue increases that are proposed within the budget.

There's a proposed social media platform fee.

There are casino tax adjustments, there are various corporate tax changes.

There's a proposed 60 million dollars in a local government distributed fund adjustment.

And I say adjustment and not a reduction because it depends if you are a glass half full or half empty individual.

Income tax revenues off of which LGTF distributions are distributed, are projected to have risen about 3%.

But instead of cities and counties sharing in the new revenue from that gain, the percentage distribution was lowered by about two tenths of one percent to hold cities and counties harmless, and obviously not participating in experiencing the increase in revenue tax collections.

It's about a $60 million withholding that combined with other transfers, totals about 140 million dollars in revenue fund sweeps or adjustments to units of governments and others alike.

There's a 300 million dollar increase proposed for K-12 education.

That's the number off of which the new education funding formula years ago was established off of.

It deals with veterans assistance commissions.

It does a few things to expand on today's law and potentially requires counties across the state to absorb additional financial liability depending on the final language of the proposal.

It does a few things.

Can you just speak maybe a little bit closer to the microphone?

A little bit soft there, Derek.

If you don't mind, please, thank you.

Happy to bring it a little bit closer.

Mr.

Chairman, I'm gonna I have never been told I have spoken too quietly in my life.

The VIC VAC proposal seeks to do a few things.

One seeks to allow adjacent counties in the state of Illinois to create something called a jurisdiction veterans assistance commission.

Basically means a multi-county VAC.

It provides for additional taxation authority depending on requests from VACs that may be used to carry out request fulfillment.

It provides for arbitration disputes to come before a neutral third party if there are disagreements between the county, a county and a veterans assistance or a jurisdictional veterans assistance commission on appropriate levels of support.

It would establish causes of action in civil court if funding requests are not met for various reasons.

This also places various limitations or deletions of potential county authority that it has over VICs today.

In short, in my opinion, it is a potential massive expansion of county oversight and VAC jurisdiction across the state of Illinois.

Now, the Senate sponsor, Mike Perferrio, he is a veteran.

He is a good man.

I believe we're having a conversation with him later this week about 3646.

And I'm not sure this is the final language that will go before committees in both chambers if it advances that far.

But because of the potential impact of it, because it has been referred to committee, and there is no committee scheduled this week on it.

Mike and I wanted to bring this to your attention today to do two things.

One, in case you do run into your local officials between now and the end of session, if this is if this issue is of interest to you, we urge you to have a discussion with him or her.

And two, as this issue continues to unfold in Springfield, we're happy to keep you, Mr.

Chairman, Matt, and Patrice updated on the progress or future amendments on 36 46.

I'll stop there and happy to answer any questions that you may have for me, sir.

Thanks for that.

Kevin.

Thanks, Chair.

I wanted to go back to one thing on the LGDF.

Does the does the county have any exposure to that, or is it just the local municipality?

It does.

Municipalities receive their distribution based on census population.

Counties receive their distribution based on those who live within its jurisdictional unincorporated areas.

So the exposure is much less than municipalities, but the answer to your question is yes.

There is exposure for every city and every county across the state of Atlanta.

It just tends to be over the last few years, because it was originally at 8%, and it's been constantly going down.

And I know it's been a point of uh consternation with the municipalities.

I was surprised to see that it went down that two tenths of a percent, where it doesn't seem that much, but that's it's huge to the local municipalities because now they start searching for other ways in which to tax their their residents.

Uh and I just wanted to know if if we had any exposure to that too.

In other words, any distribution that would be going down.

Today the percentage is about 6.5.

I believe it's 6.47, 6.48.

It's projected if the budget is passed as is, if this is a component, I believe that the suggestion is to move it to 6.28%.

But the original split was actually not eight.

It was 10% coming out of the 1970 constitution.

So there has been an erosion, obviously, over the past several years.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

And just a quick note, Kevin, before we go to Paul.

Uh every year we partner with the Lake County Municipal League, and they always have on the top of their agenda pushing it back to the 10% law.

So that's that's a perennial, and they discuss it every year at our legislative breakfast.

So that's that's always out there.

Yes, Paul.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh so my question, as I'm reading the text of the bill that you mentioned, and I heard about it earlier in the day from Chair Hart as well.

I'm just curious.

Um, is Iseiko engaging in conversations on this?

Uh the sponsor appears to be from Cook County.

And I'm just that it seems curious to me.

It doesn't entirely fit with the description of the counties that they're impacting here.

And there are some sections that apply specifically to the multi-county jurisdictional VACs, and then there's some sections that look like it's vague, whether it would apply to us or not.

So those are some areas where I think generally we'd have some questions, but I'm curious to know through conversations with IseCo.

Um if if it looks like there's going to be any effort to try to align the taxing revenue and authority streams here with other units of government, uh, whether you know they might have their own independently elected um, you know, uh representatives who who can be elected by the public and then provide some transparency on the taxing pieces here, or it's still going to run through us.

So you raised two good points, sir.

One, I think uh obviously we are, and other representatives of units of government that are affected by this, I think they're all engaged.

Um I believe Senator Profrio is either from Summit or Burbank on the near southwest side of Chicago.

You're exactly right.

It's an interesting choice of sponsor, but he he is proud of his veteran status, and he shares that with everybody, and he should share that with everybody who will listen.

My experience with the senator is is a simple one.

He's always willing to listen to suggestions and ideas, even if it's on his own proposal, requesting an amendment or changes the language that he's filed.

I'm hopeful he will do so here.

But again, we're happy to have that conversation with him this week, and we're happy to report back to your committee.

Appreciate it.

I look forward to updates on this one.

Thank you.

No, and one of the reasons I wanted Derek to speak on this bill is if you're not on Iseco's email list, they actually have been uh they they drafted a policy brief which summarizes the entirety of the legislation and their their thoughts and then what what uh sections they're explicitly opposed to.

So they actually sent out an email earlier today with that information and with that as an attachment.

So if you had not received that, I can forward that to the committee members.

Thank you.

Yes, Sandy.

Thank you.

And if you would please, Matt, just forward it to everybody on the board.

Um, and just for some context, um, the bill that was passed, I don't know, 2021.

I don't remember the bill number, but the previous VAC bill um has had an impact on Lake County on our budget to about, I would, you know, just over 20 million dollars.

Uh so that's 20 million dollars that we are taxing the public to support the VAC.

Um, which we have more veterans in Lake County than any other county outside of Cook.

Um, so it's not a uh a judgment on whether or not that that money should be received.

I do, however, think that it's really important for the public to understand that when we are increasing uh taxes from the county by I don't know, call it one million.

Um, you know, there's actually an increase of four million dollars kind of year over year.

So um we do have a lot of new growth money, right?

That comes into our property tax levy.

But I just think it's uh it's important, and there's some key points in this bill that I think got this new bill that we should be really mindful of, uh, which is if I recall it correctly, if a veteran uh is unable to get um sort of the relief that they're looking for, or the or the assistance that they're looking for from the VAC.

And the VAC does terrific work.

And I know Andrew Tangent keeps like kind of a whiteboard of all the uh ways they'd be able to help uh veterans, but it appears in this bill that if they are unable to help a veteran, that veteran can in turn sue the county.

Um, and then those uh you know, those costs, of course, would be borne by the county.

So um just some things I think that that we should be mindful.

And I appreciate Joe uh taking a look at this.

Joe McCoy with Iseiko uh taking a look at this as we do on everything that's a significant impact to county government.

So I then my question to Derek and Mike is is there another bill out there, at least right now in this session that might have that multi-million dollar impact to counties that you guys have seen, or is this kind of the number one?

With the understanding that amendments are filed daily between now and the end of session, I would suggest simply from a financial liability standpoint, this is potentially number one as of today.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you.

Any other questions for Mike or Derek?

Uh gentlemen, is it too early to ask about sponsors and co-sponsors?

Oh, I'm sorry, I just saw your your hand pop up, Adam.

Go ahead.

Sorry, Mr.

Chairman.

I jumped in pretty late.

I just I just uh I don't need any update on this today, but I you know, as I was watching the governor's speech, um, you know, his state of the state address, you know, there was a lot of talk about housing, affordable housing, attainable housing initiatives that he really wants to push forward in his legislative agenda.

I just want to like, I know that's something we're really looking at in the county.

And while I know we don't develop a whole lot of housing developments, I think it'd just be curious to get Mike or Derek.

Have they seen anything?

I think the thing that's floated up to my radar the most has been impact fees, just because I have a little fight brewing in my district with a local government body and another government body.

Just if there's anything that you guys can add to like, do you see anything on the horizon with you know housing development, housing zoning, impact fees that you know we should just kind of keep an eye as a county, not maybe necessarily take a position, but be able to help you know inform some of our constituents and and other elected officials we you know, we you know work in tangent with.

So thank you.

What I what I can say uh uh member schlick is uh that uh you know obviously we're always on the lookout for anything that would have have any type of impact fees or anything like that.

Um in general conversations on other legislation that I've had in the past week um the word that is at least coming out of the Senate is that bills with uh fee increases on them uh are not being forwarded to committee for uh consideration at this time um it seems like the leadership posture at this point is very much um trying to both limit uh bills that have any type of fiscal impact on the state or anything that has uh fees now we're talking about legislation that's moving through regular order um as we get to the end of the legislative session and the budget deal comes together uh things can happen very fast we can see amendments get filed as they're trying to figure out how to uh balance the budget and all that stuff so you know we're obviously keeping our ear to the ground and an eye on potential bills but right now um it's uh it's it it's not looking good for things of that nature to go through what we would call regular order those are if if we see something like that it's going to be probably near the end of May.

Perfect I appreciate that update like I said it's it's just something that's crept onto my radar um and again I don't think it's something the county because like we don't build you know we don't do a lot of development but we are looking for ways to streamline it to make it easier to to make housing go forward faster.

It was just something I'm curious to see what what's floating to the top and just again something to keep an eye on not you know oppose or support just you know sure see what the landscape changes are so I appreciate the update.

Of course thanks Adam uh gentlemen is it too early to ask about uh co-sponsorship of some of our major items of interest given the little level of activity there not right now uh are you speaking of anything specifically Chair Wasag?

Yeah there's like the FOIA bill the P tab relocation um the Swalco items so um I can tell you that uh um on the uh FOIA bills uh uh we've had multiple conversations with representative Biddic he's filed um four different FOIA bills and he's very aware of the issues related to Lake County and is committed to uh if if if any of those getting get any traction of trying to do his best to address our issues within those um there was FOIA legislation passed last year which makes a new FOIA bill coming after that a little bit more difficult uh but he is engaged in our behalf on that so we appreciate that um you mentioned the Swalco bills um we actually have Swalco uh uh bill numbers that uh uh you know the legislation has been filed I know uh there was a plastic bags uh bill that was filed by Representative Laura Favor Diais um I can get you these uh bill numbers I don't have them at my fingertips at the moment um household hazardous waste legislation was filed in uh both chambers uh with Senator uh Dave Kaler of Peoria and Representative Sharon Chung of Bloomington Normal as the lead sponsors there.

Um the food waste legislation sponsored by Adrian Johnson has been filed and we actually had a pretty productive meeting with her yesterday uh talking about amendments uh that that we're working on to try to get uh the environmental protection agency to neutral on uh I would say across the board on all of those issues uh as I mentioned with earlier with uh uh member schlick's comment um uh the fact that the uh plastic bag fee bill uh or plastic bags bill has a fee in it uh uh has all but ensured that it's probably not going to get a committee assignment.

Um the uh same with uh the HHW uh bill even though that doesn't exactly have a fee in it it uses what we call cost internalization but it's being viewed as such by leadership at this time uh but there's still a lot of negotiating work to do with a lot of the parties on a lot of these things.

Uh one bill that is moving in the environmental space that I think you're uh asking about Chair is uh there is an EPR bill moving uh that takes a uh a pretty significant chunk out of the uh uh household hazardous waste bill from last year it's a special it it it basically takes all automated flu automated uh fluids and their packaging and sets up its own um uh producer responsibility organization and basically deals with them as an individual uh uh item which would be a huge win not just for us but for the environment as well um the industry seems to be on board with that and uh uh that seems to be because of the uh consensus around it uh a bill that seems to have a good chance of moving through the process this year so uh progress in some areas but it is a difficult year um uh and I I think there might have been one other area you asked about but I'm I'm drawing a blank on that at this point.

Um I I think there might have been one other area you asked about, but I'm I'm drawing a blank on that at this point.

Um well, let's let's look at a few other things.

So we have the volunteer lakes management program, uh, which would probably be an IEPA line item.

Uh we have the um the toxic coal ash at Walk Keegan, which is a perennial, and uh we had a few others.

I believe the coal ash bill was filed again, if I'm not mistaken.

Derek, do you recall the number on that?

I don't recall the number, but if I but I believe it's been restored back to the calendar in the house.

I believe the 2025 version may be on the house floor.

Okay.

And uh we had an item of interest decriminalizing homelessness.

And also um anything to do to give us a backstop on healthcare funding.

Uh I don't believe the homeless bill has been restored or referred to the committee to a committee this year.

Um I don't I don't believe that's happened this year.

Okay.

And I I mentioned the uh PTAB uh remote hearing uh provision Zed moving at all.

Leader Morrison's bill has been re-referred back to the Senate Executive Committee.

It currently sits before today.

Okay.

So I'm I'm also guessing that we're waiting for more committee assignments for some of these bills, or where we are.

Yes.

Yeah.

Well, I I think as as Derek said in his opening remarks, uh, as tends to happen in the uh uh second year of a general assembly because uh uh of the focus by many of our elected officials on the upcoming uh primary election, everything tends to be offloaded to the other side of the election.

So uh the primary is March 17th.

Uh we would expect to see more committee assignments in uh the week or two after that.

I believe the the deadline for I think it's the House is the end of that uh week of the 17th, and then the Senate's committee deadline is the week after that.

So um I would expect that you'll see more assignments and more bills moving out of committee with an agreement to continue working on them and all that stuff.

Uh but I I I as Derek said, there's just not a lot uh being uh let out into the open uh just yet.

Yeah, it's just that time of the year in the calendar.

Um and circling back to the uh volunteer lakes management program or monitoring program.

Did you have any sponsors for that?

Or we still need to get sponsors for it?

Just trying to get a status update on that.

My recollection is that we're looking for uh uh live vehicles uh that we can use as uh vehicle bills as we go through the process.

Um and uh we'll have a better sense of what those vehicles might be once we actually see bills moving.

I mean, there's there's more than enough germane bills out there that have been filed that have a chance to move.

Um we just need to you know keep our eye on both chambers for the ones that uh we think make the most sense and then approach them at that time.

And I'm I'm just reading between the lines, but I'm guessing that uh these items might become more dynamic after the uh primary, correct?

Yes.

Okay, you're smiling.

Okay.

Sounds good.

Any other questions for Mike or Derek?

Thanks again, gentlemen.

Hang on for a couple seconds and uh might have to come back to you.

All right, thank you.

Uh item 8.3.

Uh talking to our federal lobbyist uh Clayton and um also Scott, who we met with in Washington.

Clayton, I hope you're Clayton.

I hope you're feeling better.

Much better, much better.

I'm back back here.

Uh unfortunately that my 14-hour train ride to get up to DC did not result in me seeing you guys, but um thanks for asking.

Good.

Well, Scott was a great host, and we had some time to talk with him, and he he escorted us through the mostly empty halls of the House building.

So thanks again, Scott.

Yeah, absolutely.

That it was a pleasure to welcome you and uh members of the board here to DC uh last week.

And uh we had a number of impactful meetings with uh the delegation, as you mentioned, Mr.

Chairman.

Um the most timely update uh for the group is related to community project funding.

Uh just this week, uh Matt and Clayton and I have uh uh had a discussion on deadlines and which projects uh would be intended to submit uh to which uh member of Congress and your senators, uh, and we will organize those and get those uh submitted and uh be sure that we're doing all of the socialization and education necessary on our end uh to make sure that those projects are prioritized and submitted for.

That's the main update for today, but happy to answer any questions and Clayton.

Uh feel free to address anything that I've left off.

So I'm I'm taking that there isn't a whole lot of action on right now, and there's still an impasse over the DHS funding.

Is that correct?

Yeah, that's correct.

And of course, I think the um actions that the president took over the weekend um, you know, create a further uh kind of log jam there.

Um just the politics around that and and um getting back to the table might now be more difficult.

And is there any scheduled um resumption of house activity anytime soon?

I I take the Senate is out too.

I believe they're back um this week, you know, and and in kind of session, but but no, I don't there's been no um you know impasse or vote scheduled to break that uh that partial shutdown.

Okay, thanks.

Right now, the House and the Senate are in session, and um I think that this weekend's uh the activities in Iran uh are taking up most of the uh most of the oxygen in DC.

Sure.

Any questions for Scott or Clayton in Washington?

Okay, gentlemen, uh keep us surprised.

I know it's kind of tense times right now, but um anything starts to move, let us know.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Sounds good.

Thanks, sir.

Item 8.4 to Matt for updates on our various pieces of legislation.

Yep, sure.

So we already kind of did this um under item 8.2 with respect to state.

The only bill that did not come up was one that was mentioned at the previous meeting, and that was uh I believe that was SB 2941, which was related to the RTA core percent sales tax that was filed and stated that county shall use the core percent sales tax between uh public safety and transportation related reasons at a 50-50 split.

So it is kind of mandating us to use that from a public safety standpoint at the same time as transportation, which would uh impact how we are currently funding our transportation.

So that was Senator Adrian Johnson, and I'll state that um similar to every other bill, nothing has moved with respect to that one.

We've had some discussions and it's still under review on on their end, and uh we wait and are excited to have continued conversations as it's a bill of interest to not only us and something we wouldn't necessarily be excited about, but all the other collar counties as well, as they've also reached out to us to get our thoughts.

So it's a bill we're continuing to monitor and and um continue to work with Senator Johnson on.

Okay, any questions for Matt.

Very good.

Do we have a county administrator's report?

We do not.

Okay, there's no executive session.

Any member remarks or requests?

Yes, Paul, sorry.

Thanks.

I just want to take the opportunity to thank you and deputy administrator Myers for doing great work during the NACO meeting.

I was able to join you briefly at the very tail end of the meeting in DC and accompanied you to a couple of the staff meetings on Capitol Hill.

And uh, thought you guys did a great job of keeping us organized, focused, and staying on message with the staff.

And so just want to thank you for your leadership on that.

Well, thank you for coming out.

We always could use another hand when we go to Capitol Hill and just being there and talking with our lobbyists is always helpful.

And thanks to you as well, Gina, for joining us.

And hope you made it back okay despite your uh bad cold.

Your nasty cold.

I got one too, but um hope to feel better soon.

Uh any other remarks?

Okay, thank you very much.

Our next meeting is April 7th, and we are adjourned.

Thank you.