* Comptroller Susana Mendoza and President of Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives David Doig…

If you live in a struggling Chicago neighborhood and you set aside a portion of your tax dollars to redevelop your neighborhood, you should be able to trust the city will use that money to improve your community.

That’s why the Illinois General Assembly created the tax increment financing program. That’s why residents of these neighborhoods support them. That’s what the legislation we are championing in the General Assembly will spell out. […]

Mayor Brandon Johnson’s city budget last year raided $1 billion from neighborhood TIF districts all over the city. The City Council revised the mayor’s budget but kept his raids on TIFs. Here’s what neighborhoods lost: $11 million from Humboldt Park; $5 million from 87th & Cottage Grove; $13 million from Belmont Central; $7 million from Englewood; $8 million from Galewood; $125 million from Pilsen. […]

So we have joined with state Sen. Bill Cunningham, D-Chicago, and state Rep. Bob Rita, D-Calumet City, to introduce legislation in the Illinois Senate and in the Illinois House of Representatives to prohibit mayors from raiding TIF funds to plug temporary budget holes.

These bills would limit a mayor’s ability to declare unspent TIF funds “surplus,” take them out of the neighborhoods and use them to boost spending at City Hall. This legislation will handcuff city officials tempted to plunder the TIF cookie jar by limiting them to taking only 5% of the TIF funds once every 10 years.

SB3236 missed Friday’s deadline to move out of committee, but the committee deadline has since been extended to April 24.

* Behavioral Health Business…

New bills filed in the Illinois legislature may undo a previous effort to bring more regulation to autism therapy ownership that some say has created a major burden for operators in the state.

Twin bills (Senate Bill 3807 and House Bill 5171) were filed in February by Democratic lawmakers Sen. Mary Edly-Allen and Representative Laura Faver Dias. If made law, they would undo a section of the state licensing law established in 2022 that forbade anyone other than licensed practitioners from owning practices. That previous regulation made Illinois one of two state outliers regarding who may or may not own autism therapy practices that include applied behavior analysis (ABA). The other is New York.

The bills would also add occupational therapists to the list of clinician types that may own an ABA practice, would allow ABA practices to exist in the same corporate entity as other mental health or rehabilitation practices, and expressly forbid non-licensed individuals from making health care decisions. […]

The bill would still include protections to expressly forbid corporate intrusions in clinical practice, Tani Weiner, co-chair of the behavioral health law group at Polsinelli, told BHB.

* Shaw Local…

Coleadero, or steer tailing, is a Mexican-style rodeo event where a horseback rider chases a running steer, grabs onto its tail, and wraps the tail around the rider’s leg to slam the animal to the ground. The event is banned in Nebraska and in parts of California and Colorado, but not in Illinois. […]

A bill that would ban steer tailing in Illinois was introduced Jan. 13, 2025, by state Sen. Rachel Ventura, D-Joliet. It was referred to assignments that day and has not been voted on. […]

Some senators are struggling to support it due to the penalties imposed and concerns from the Latino community and the Department of Agriculture. […]

As it’s written, it would amend the Humane Care Act to add “that no person may intentionally drag or pull any bovine by its tail by any means for the purpose of entertainment, sport, practice, or contest,” according to the bill. […]

[Sen. Li Arellano Jr. (R-Dixon)] said he would like to amend it to change the penalties into fines and revoke or ban future licenses. For example, the first offense could be a $250 fine, and a third offense might be $1,000, along with a ban from holding future events.

“This isn’t a situation where you’re going out and intentionally being cruel to animals. That can be a component, but generally speaking, this isn’t cockfighting. Unfortunately, the statutes currently don’t envision that. There’s kind of not a middle ground,” Arellano said.

* Capitol News Illinois…

[W]omen are 27% less likely to receive bystander CPR than men because of hesitancy to follow protocol, fueled by fears of inappropriate touching, exposing the chest or drawing accusations of sexual assault, according to the Journal of the American Heart Association.

House Bill 4788, sponsored by Rep. Maura Hirschauer, D-Batavia, aims to defeat this stigma, normalizing CPR performance on women by introducing female manikins in secondary school CPR training.

The idea for the legislation began with a Naperville High School student, senior Ashlynn Goldstein. “I had been CPR certified a lot of times — never in my life had I ever encountered a female manikin,” Goldstein said. […]

The bill is currently assigned to the Education Policy Committee. It requires CPR training in secondary schools to include at least one female manikin for every two male versions, starting in the 2028-29 academic year.

* More…

* Press release | Villanueva moves to establish LGBTQ+ bill of rights for long-term care residents: Senate Bill 2805 would create the Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Gender Expression in Long-Term Care Bill of Rights Act, outlining clear protections for residents receiving services in long-term care facilities or through home care providers. The measure aims to prevent discrimination based on a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, sex or HIV status.