ISBA Director of Legislative Affairs Jim Covington reviews bills in Springfield of interest to ISBA members. This week he covers Senate Bill 3101 (Property tax collection), Senate Bill 2569 (Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act), House Bill 4028 (Adoption) and House Bill 4081 (Eavesdropping) and Senate Bill 3204 (Power of Attorney Act for Property). More information on each bill is available below the video.

Senate Bill 3101 (Althoff, R-Crystal Lake) allows a county collector to mail a property tax bill to the property owner at his or her new address if a property owner conveys a permanent change of address in writing to the United States Postal Service. It also allows the collector to send the tax bill via email at the request of the taxpayer. If the taxpayer makes this request, then the taxpayer must notify the collector of any change in his or her e-mail address as soon as possible after the address is changed. Passed the Senate and arrived in the House.

Senate Bill 2569 (Mulroe) amends the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act to require notice and impose time limits before a litigant can claim dissipation of marital and non-marital assets. In addition, it clarifies the child support section of the Act by codifying existing practice and case law.

It provides more clarity and certainty in the law if one party claims the other party dissipated assets during the marriage in anticipation of dissolution. The proposal creates a three-step procedure as follows:

• Notice of intent to claim dissipation must be filed no later than 60 days before trial or 30 days after discovery closes, whichever is later;
• Notice must identify the property dissipated, a timeframe of when the marriage began to break down, and when the dissipation occurred; and
• Notice must be filed with the clerk of the court and served under applicable rules.

No dissipation may be considered if it occurred five years before filing of dissolution of marriage if the spouse had no knowledge of the dissipation, or three years after the party claiming dissipation knew, or should have known, of the dissipation.

It also codifies existing practice and case law by granting the court the right to order both parties to make health needs not covered by insurance, child-care, school and extracurricular activities in addition to statutory child support.

House Bill 4028 (Feigenholtz, D-Chicago) makes several changes to the Adoption Act.

House Bill 4081 (Gordon, D-Peoria) amends the Illinois Eavesdropping Act to allow police eavesdropping if there is (1) one-party consent from an officer or confidential informant, (2) approval from a state’s attorney, and (3) reasonable suspicion of a drug deal within 24 hours. No prior judicial approval is needed. The conversations heard or recorded would be admissible to prosecute a drug crime, or forcible felony in the course of a drug crime. There is a 2015 sunset. It is scheduled for hearing today in House Executive Committee. Interesting that the General Assembly is creating yet another exemption allowing police eavesdropping without prior judicial approval but continues to make it a Class 1 felony for a citizen to record an officer in a public place doing public duty.