August 21, 2015

To the Honorable Members of

The Illinois House of Representatives,

99th General Assembly:

Today I return House Bill 4113 with specific recommendations for change.

First, House Bill 4113 exempts printing contracts for the student newspaper at Southern Illinois University’s Carbondale campus from the Illinois Procurement Code for one year, during which time the bill requires those contracts be publicly awarded through an alternative process. Student newspapers are a vital part of vibrant and engaged student populations at all universities. The changes made by this bill – which provide more flexibility to the student newspapers while ensuring a public procurement process – should apply to all public universities and colleges during the one-year trial period.

Second, the bill increases the voting representation of students on the Southern Illinois University Board of Trustees. Current law provides the student bodies of both campuses with representation on the Board of Trustees; one of those representatives is a voting member, and the other is a non-voting member. The bill would permit both representatives to be voting members.

Student representatives are valuable additions to the Board of Trustees. But on a board of just nine or ten voting trustees (depending on whether one or both student representatives are voting members), having two student voting members is not necessary or advisable. The Board of Trustees must consider difficult budgetary issues, academic requirements, and student conduct and disciplinary issues. The long-term views of professionals must be given appropriate weight. The current make-up allows for the students’ perspective to be heard without diluting the insight gained from the other trustees’ years of professional experience.  As such, I recommend that no change be made to the composition of the Board of Trustees.

Therefore, pursuant to Section 9(e) of Article IV of the Illinois Constitution of 1970, I hereby return House Bill 4113 with the following changes:

On page 1, line 7, by deleting “Southern Illinois”; and

On page 1, by replacing line 11 with “at any public institution of higher education as defined in the Board of Higher Education Act.”; and

On page 1, by replacing lines 12 and 13 with “Notice of each contract entered into by a public institution of higher education that is related to the procurement of printing”; and

On page 1, line 17, by replacing “Southern Illinois University” with “The public institution of higher education”; and

On page 2, by deleting lines 10 through 24; and

By deleting pages 3 through 5; and

On page 6, by deleting lines 1 through 7.

With these changes, House Bill 4113 will have my approval. I respectfully request your concurrence.

Sincerely,

Bruce Rauner

GOVERNOR