## Facts

- The Illinois General Assembly enacted the State Mandates Act, which generally required the State to reimburse units of local government, including school districts, for added costs created by state-imposed mandates.
- Under the Act, a mandate was to be accompanied by an appropriation for reimbursement, unless the mandate fell within one of five statutory “exclusions” from reimbursement.
- The Act required the General Assembly to state whether any of the five exclusions applied to a given mandate.
- The Act also allowed preparation of a fiscal note describing the financial impact of a mandate, but the fiscal note provision was not mandatory.
- The General Assembly enacted Public Act 83-913, commonly called the Nurses’ Pay Bill, requiring local school boards to raise certified nurses’ salaries to the level of certified teachers’ salaries.
- The Nurses’ Pay Bill did not include a companion appropriation for reimbursement and did not include a fiscal note.
- The Nurses’ Pay Bill did not identify any of the Act’s five exclusions as applying to the mandate, and it was not enacted as an “exempt mandate” under the Act’s exemption provisions; instead, it declared that reimbursement was not required under the State Mandates Act.
- The Board of Education of Maine Township High School District 207 and other school districts filed a declaratory judgment action against the State Board of Education and the State Superintendent of Education, asserting that the Nurses’ Pay Bill violated the State Mandates Act.
- On cross-motions for summary judgment, the trial court ruled (1) the Nurses’ Pay Bill was not void for lack of a fiscal note and (2) it was enforceable against school districts despite the lack of a reimbursement appropriation. Maine Township appealed those rulings.

## Issues

1. Whether the Nurses’ Pay Bill was enforceable against school districts as a state mandate when it lacked a companion appropriation and was not properly excluded or exempted under the State Mandates Act.
2. Whether the Nurses’ Pay Bill was void in its entirety because no fiscal note accompanied the bill.

## Decision

- The appellate court held the Nurses’ Pay Bill was **not enforceable** against the plaintiff school districts as a mandate because it was not accompanied by an appropriation and was not properly treated as excluded or exempt under the State Mandates Act.
- The court rejected the argument that the General Assembly could avoid the State Mandates Act’s reimbursement structure by inserting a bare declaration that reimbursement was not required.
- The appellate court held the Nurses’ Pay Bill was **not void** due to the absence of a fiscal note, because courts may not invalidate an enrolled and enacted law based on alleged failures to follow internal legislative procedures.
- The appellate court therefore reversed the trial court to the extent it enforced the Nurses’ Pay Bill as an unfunded mandate, while leaving intact the trial court’s conclusion that the lack of a fiscal note did not invalidate the Act.

## Legal Principles

- When the legislature enacts a statute that sets conditions for imposing reimbursable mandates on local governments, later legislatures remain bound by those conditions unless they amend or repeal them through valid legislation.
- Under the State Mandates Act, a costly mandate on local governments is not enforceable without state reimbursement funding unless the mandate fits within a stated statutory exclusion or is enacted as an exempt mandate through the Act’s exemption provisions.
- A legislative declaration that “reimbursement is not required” does not, by itself, satisfy the Act’s requirements for an exclusion or an exemption.
- Under Illinois’ enrolled bill rule, courts generally will not invalidate a duly enacted statute by examining whether the General Assembly complied with internal procedural steps such as preparing a fiscal note.

## Conclusion

The Appellate Court of Illinois held that the Nurses’ Pay Bill’s salary-parity requirement could not be enforced as a state mandate against local school districts because it lacked the reimbursement appropriation required by the State Mandates Act and was neither properly excluded nor exempted under that Act, even though the statute’s missing fiscal note did not render it void under the enrolled bill rule.


Board of Education of Maine Township v. State Board of Education, 487 N.E.2d 1053 (1985)