Decennial Committee Reports: Local Taxing Bodies Tell Us About Themselves

Illinois local government involves a lot of local government entities. Not just county boards, village boards, city councils, and such. There are overlapping township governments, library boards, sanitary districts, water and drainage districts, etc. The County linked to a handy two page explainer on all the various entities that have to make one of these 10 year reports here. Excerpt:

The Act requires certain (not all) units of local government to establish a committee within one year after the effective date, and at least once every 10 years thereafter, to study local efficiencies and report recommendations to the county board in which the governmental unit is located. The Act applies to units of local government that may levy any tax, except municipalities and counties. 

The Act specifically does not apply to municipalities and counties. 

However, the Act applies to units of local government whose governing board may include a municipal appointee, as detailed in Table 1, and units of local government whose operations may be of interest to, or may directly impact, municipalities, as detailed in Table 2.

The tables list a wide variety of the kinds of local government bodies most people never know even exist, but may provide oversight on their library's budget, hire directors for important public agencies, or ensure that the former swamp land they live and work on doesn't flood (a constant battle in Champaign County). The Cheat Sheet had an overview of the first MTD Decennial Committee meeting here, where they were attempting to figure out how to abide by the new law and use the opportunity in a productive way.

Reports:

Some of the early Decennial Committee Reports are being posted on the County website. The timeline requirements of establishing a committee was a fairly wide window, with 18 months allowed to provide a final report to the local County Board. Here are the reports so far (see the County's Decennial page for the latest updates here):

Community Colleges:

• Parkland College

Fire Protection Districts:

• Homer Fire Protection District
  
  
• Sidney Fire Protection District
  
  
• Sidney Fire Protection District – Amended

Park Districts:

• Champaign Park District

Public Library Districts:

• Tolono Public Library District 

Road Districts:

• Joint Champaign Township and Champaign Township Road District
  
  
• Joint Scott Township and Scott Township Road District

As a quick example, if one were curious as to what the Homer Fire Protection District actually is and does, they have a pretty concise overview of the people the district employs, services it provides, and the role of the governing body in selecting the Fire Chief and some budget matters:

The reports tend to have a pretty useful summary followed by a deeper dive into the people, facilities, and services of each local taxing body. The Homer Fire Protection District has a nice summary about its budget primarily going to equipment costs, payroll, and facilities.

Township governments in Illinois tend to be the focus of many efforts to reduce overlapping and local government bodies throughout every County in Illinois. Each County is comprised of multiple townships. There are 20 cities like Champaign and Urbana having coterminous townships where members of ethe City Council are also the township board (for City of Champaign Township and Cunningham Township, respectively).

The current Decennial Reports include Champaign Township (which surrounds the City of Champaign / City of Champaign Township) and Scott Township just west of that (including Bondville).

Anyone unfamiliar with township government can quickly get a sense of the role they generally play and how that can vary from township to township depending on the need and elected officials in charge. They can also consider how those services (e.g. road maintenance) could conceivably be put under a different jurisdiction, such as a county highway department.