The Senate returned to Springfield this week on the 15th for one day. One of the reasons for the return to Springfield was to address energy-related legislation. However, no agreement was reached so no energy-related legislation was considered.

Another reason for the Senate's return to Springfield was address the Governor's amendatory veto of the appropriations portion of the budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1. The Senate voted to uphold the Governor's amendatory veto of the state budget appropriations bill SB 2800. The Governor amendatorily vetoed the budget bill to address problems with the effective dates of various provisions of the appropriations bill that resulted from the passage of the bill by the Senate in the early morning hours of June 1.

SB 2800 was drafted in anticipation of the bill being passed by both the House and Senate on May 31. Because the bill passed the Senate on June 1, by virtue of the terms of Section 2 of the Effective Date of Laws Act a significant portion of the budget appropriations would not have been effective until June 1 of 2022 - one month before the end of the FY 2022 budget year. (The law provides for differing rules on the effective date of legislation if legislation is passed on or prior to May 31 or after May 31.

The Governor amendatorily vetoed SB 2800 to correct the effective date issues. The Senate Voted to accept the Governor's amendatory veto.

The House returned to Springfield on the 16th to address any energy-related legislation passed by the Senate and also to consider legislation to require an elected school board for the Chicago Public Schools that passed the Senate prior to May 31, but was not considered by the House. As you are likely aware from press reports, the House passed legislation authorizing and elected school board for the Chicago Public Schools.

The House also voted to uphold the Governor's amendatory veto of SB 2800.

It is unclear as of today whether the House and Senate will return to Springfield prior to the fall veto session. If an agreement is reached on energy legislation, the House and Senate will likely return to Springfield to consider energy legislation and could take up other matters as time permits.

The House Revenue committee met on Wednesday. The committee considered motions to concur with the Senate amendment of HB 731.The bill was amended in the Senate with the language from SB 1794. As amended, the bill amends the Local Government Taxpayers' Bill of Rights Act and provides that, for utility taxes, no notice of determination of tax due or assessment may be issued more than 7 years (currently, 4 years) after the end of the calendar year for which the return for the period was filed or the end of the calendar year in which the return for the period was due, whichever occurs later. The amended bill also provides that a municipality may annually (currently, every 2 years) request certain information from a utility that the municipality reasonably requires in order to perform an audit. Provides that the utility may provide certain premises-specific information to the municipality but may not provide customer-specific information. Amends the Public Utilities Act. Provides that the Illinois Commerce Commission shall not consider (i) certain court costs, attorney's fees, penalties, or interest to be an expense of any public utility company when determining a rate or charge. Makes other changes.

We strongly opposed SB 1794 and the attempt to revive the legislation through HB 731 and worked with our affected members and we were part of a group of other representatives of the business committee and the IBEW to oppose HB 731 this week.

A motion to concur with the Senate amendment to HB 731 was considered by the House Revenue committee on the 16th. I filed a witness slip in opposition to the legislation and was available to provide testimony to supplement the opposition of the other opponents. The motion to concur in the Senate amendment to HB 731 passed out of the Revenue committee on a partisan vote. During the voting, the Chairman was forced to recess the committee to round up two additional votes he needed to pass the bill out of the committee - one of the additional affirmative votes was achieved by having the speaker of the House issue a letter replacing one of the Democratic members of the Revenue committee, Representative West, with the sponsor of the bill, Representative Moylan.

HB 731 was then moved to the House floor, but it was not voted on by the full House when the House was in session on Wednesday. We will continue in our efforts to oppose the legislation so that the concurrence motion is not taken up by the House if and when the House returns to Springfield.

The House Revenue committee also considered a motion to concur with Senate amendments to HB 2499. This legislation deals with boat registration and watercraft regulations.

The June 18 edition of the Illinois Register does not contain any proposed or adopted rulemakings by the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity or the Department of Revenue.

.The Illinois Supreme Court issued an opinion in a tax deed case, In re. Application For a Tax Deed (SI Resources, LLC et al., v. Opal Castleman et al.

The Cook County Assessor announced the release of the first property reassessments for the City of Chicago

The Illinois Auditor General recently released the Financial Audit of the Illinois Department of Revenue.

The Illinois Chamber is returning to its traditional Annual Luncheon & Reception format with its September 30^th get together at the Palmer House in Chicago. This year’s Keynote Speaker is Holly Sullivan, VP of Worldwide Economic Development, Amazon.