August 21, 2018

To the Honorable Members of

The Illinois Senate,

100th General Assembly:

Today, I return Senate Bill 2857 with specific recommendations for change.

Under this proposed legislation, the State Treasurer is seeking to impose up to $12 million annually in undisclosed and unsupervised administrative fees on the rest of the State government to perform his already prescribed constitutional duty of safekeeping and investing State funds.

This bill will leave the Treasurer less accountable and less transparent during the annual budget process, undermining the legislature’s responsibility to budget and the public’s right to control the process via public input. As we strive to improve government accountability and budgeting accuracy through efforts such as ending offshoring of employees, it would be inconsistent and detrimental to these objectives to allow the Treasurer new power to garnish his own self-set fees from funds that don’t receive the same scrutiny as the General Revenue Fund. Furthermore, this bill far exceeds the original purpose of the statute, which narrowly allowed the Treasurer to impose an administrative charge with respect to certain deposits by circuit clerks, county clerks, and other entities. The intention was never to allow charges to other state agencies to fulfill the Treasurer’s basic constitutionally mandated functions.

Therefore, pursuant to Section 9(e) of Article IV of the Illinois Constitution of 1970, I hereby return Senate Bill 2857, entitled “AN ACT concerning state government”, with the following specific recommendations for change:

By replacing page 1, line 6 through page 3, line 8 with the following:

“Sec. 20. State Treasurer administrative charge. The State Treasurer may retain an administrative charge for the costs of services associated with the deposit of moneys that are remitted directly to the State Treasurer. The administrative charge collected under this Section shall be deposited into the State Treasurer's Administrative Fund. The amount of the administrative charge shall be determined by the General Assembly may be determined by the State Treasurer and shall not exceed 2% of the amount deposited.
    This Section shall apply to fines, fees, or other amounts remitted directly to the State Treasurer by circuit clerks, county clerks, and other entities for deposit into a fund in the State treasury. This Section does not apply to amounts remitted by State agencies or certified collection specialists as defined in 74 Ill. Admin. Code 1200.50. This Section shall apply only to any form of fines, fees, or other collections created on or after the effective date of this amendatory Act of the 98th General Assembly. 

Moneys in the State Treasurer's Administrative Fund are subject to appropriation by the General Assembly.
(Source: P.A. 98-965, eff. 8-15-14.)”.

With these changes, Senate Bill 2857 will have my approval. I respectfully request your concurrence.

Sincerely,

Bruce Rauner

GOVERNOR