Illinois has a knack for leading the country in areas other states avoid, vying for the worst public pension debt, the most units of government per capita and the biggest parade of wealthy people migrating out of state.
Now comes a report on another unwanted superlative: Illinois has so many state boards, commissions and task forces that even its official public auditor struggles to keep track.
As the Tribune’s Olivia Olander reported on July 22, state panels tasked with solving some of Illinois’ knottiest problems have been left with hundreds of vacancies and often lack enough members to conduct business.
An audit report published in June found that more than 100 state boards were inactive during the period studied, while 28% of boards that were required to meet a certain number of times had failed to do so. Most boards paid their members some type of compensation, such as reimbursing expenses, amounting to almost $2 million a year. But in several cases the auditors couldn’t even say for sure whether board members were supposed to be paid or not.
That’s your tax dollars at work, Illinois style.
In some cases, these boards were created by statutes, resolutions and executive orders in lieu of taking action on important issues, a classic Springfield technique for kicking the proverbial can down the road. While they’ve turned out to be little more than PR stunts to make it look like elected officials were doing something, shutting them down does nothing to solve the knotty problems that were supposed to be addressed in the first place — from preventing HIV/AIDs in youth and figuring out how to safely house sex offenders to eliminating racial disparities in child foster care.
Do you think campaign finance in judicial elections needs reform? Sorry, that board was inactive, the auditors found. So was a board established to promote amateur sports. Same goes for a board advising lawmakers on services for deaf and blind people.
Climate change might strike some people as an urgent matter, given how wildfires across the U.S. and Canada are pouring toxic smoke into the air at this very moment, but that advisory board not only was inactive, but completed its work in 2007. Its authorization was never repealed, and evidently no one ever thought to revive it.
Opportunities for at-risk women? Inactive. Youth homelessness prevention? Inactive. Urban weatherization? Yes, there’s a state board for that, and not only was it inactive, but the program has not been funded for many years, the auditors found.
Let’s give some credit where it’s due: The Illinois House ordered the audit in 2022, and the Illinois Auditor General’s office took the assignment seriously. It was no small task to merely identify the 339 state-level boards and commissions, let alone to figure out which ones were doing anything. The detailed part of the audit report runs for 636 pages, on top of a 70-page summary.
The audit covers the two years ending in June 2022. To be fair, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down much of the country during that period and no doubt contributed to some of the inactivity. The governor’s office told the Tribune it is making progress on board-member vacancies the governor is supposed to fill, having whittled the number down from 839 during the audit period to 688 as of last month.
But hold your applause.
Among the audit report findings were 32 boards and commissions that had been inactive since at least 2018. The Illinois Literacy Council has not met since 1998 and has no members appointed, but the statute establishing it remains on the books. The grandly named Illinois Institute for Entrepreneurship Education has been inactive since fiscal 2011.
This isn’t just a matter of housekeeping. As Alisa Kaplan, executive director of the nonprofit Reform for Illinois, told the Tribune, it undermines the public’s trust “to have a bunch of commissions that are supposed to be doing a job for them and aren’t.” It also undermines the public’s trust to have critically important state boards lumped in with the do-nothing ones.
Sprinkled among the 300-plus boards and commissions are the Prisoner Review Board, which decides who gets parole, and the boards that oversee each of Illinois’ public universities. The Illinois Commerce Commission sets the rates for public utilities, regulates railroads and licenses moving and towing companies.
The people serving on those boards do an important public service, wrestling with crucial matters, working shorthanded because of chronic vacancies and occasionally opening themselves up to public criticism. They and others who devote their efforts on behalf of state residents deserve thanks — and deserve better than being part of a system where so many other state boards don’t do a thing for anybody.
Let’s end the charade and eliminate these neglected stepchildren. And please, Springfield, even though it would be the Illinois thing to do, resist the temptation to establish a new board responsible for reviewing all the old boards. It’s past time to clean out this beyond-messy closet.
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