Opinion ID: 2032509
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Discretionary Guidelines

Text: The collector asserts that the county clerk is provided with sufficient guidelines under section 16 and the Revenue Act in accepting collection-year filings of levy ordinances. The collector submits that the Revenue Act provides guidelines and extensive regulation of the county clerk in extending taxes. According to the collector, the county clerk's acceptance of a collection-year filing is bounded by the requirement that the filing be made before the actual closure of the books yet in sufficient time for computation of the tax rate before the designated date for mailing tax bills (Ill.Rev.Stat.1989, ch. 120, par. 671). The collector asserts that these guidelines meet the standards of Stofer v. Motor Vehicle Casualty Co. (1977), 68 Ill.2d 361, 12 Ill.Dec. 168, 369 N.E.2d 875. The collector claims that any discretion given the county clerk under section 16 only goes to the timing of any acceptance as opposed to the fact of acceptance. The objectors argue that the county clerk is granted discretion under section 16 to accept or reject the filing of late bond levies for any reason he deems appropriate. By way of contrast, the objectors refer to section 17-3.2 of the School Code, which provides for supplemental levies after the last day of the tax calendar year. (Ill.Rev. Stat.1989, ch. 122, par. 17-3.2.) According to the objectors, section 17-3.2, unlike section 16, allows for the making and filing of levies after the last day of the tax year calendar, but grants no discretion to the county clerk with respect to accepting the filing. The objectors also refer to section 17-11 of the School Code as similarly contrasting with section 16. Ill.Rev.Stat.1989, ch. 122, par. 17-11. The objectors disagree that any guidelines associated with section 16 meet the measure of those articulated in Stofer v. Motor Vehicle Casualty Co . The objectors contend that the stated purposes of the Debt Reform Act are vague, and section 16 does not explain why permitting the post-tax calendar year filing of a levy ordinance is beneficial. The objectors contend that there are no guidelines in the Debt Reform Act or in section 16 to assist the county clerk in accepting or rejecting late filings. When the legislature vests discretionary authority in an administrative officer, intelligible standards must be provided to guide the officer in the exercise of his discretion. (See Balmoral Racing Club, Inc. v. Illinois Racing Board (1992), 151 Ill.2d 367, 391, 177 Ill.Dec. 419, 603 N.E.2d 489; Bio-Medical Laboratories, Inc. v. Trainor (1977), 68 Ill.2d 540, 551, 12 Ill.Dec. 600, 370 N.E.2d 223.) A statute conferring discretionary authority upon an administrator without properly defining the terms under which discretion is to be exercised is void as an unlawful delegation of legislative authority. ( Rodman v. Department of Revenue (1972), 51 Ill.2d 314, 318, 282 N.E.2d 706.) However, the legislature need not establish absolute criteria whereby every detail and circumstance necessary in the enforcement of the law is anticipated. See Memorial Gardens Association, Inc. v. Smith (1959), 16 Ill.2d 116, 131, 156 N.E.2d 587. The objectors imply that statutorily permitted collection-year filings of tax levies are unusual and that the county clerk's authority thereunder must therefore be strictly regulated and guided. Actually, however, the bond levy ordinance and collection process set out in the Revenue Act and various enabling legislation generally provides for the filing of such ordinances without specifying any particular time for filing. (See Ill.Rev. Stat.1989, ch. 122, par. 19-7 ([w]henever any school district    is authorized to issue bonds, the recording officer thereof shall file).) While the objectors are correct in pointing out that under these provisions the county clerk is not granted discretion to accept or reject such filings, we believe that it is the clerk's very inability to exercise discretion under such provisions which section 16 now addresses. With section 16, the General Assembly recognized that the timing of bond levies, their related ordinances and the issuance of the particular bonds was critical in order to avoid additional costs to local governmental units. However, affording flexibility in that area, by allowing collection-year filings of tax ordinances, may impact negatively on the efficiency of the tax assessment, valuation, extension and collection process. The impact of late levies on the efficiency of the tax collection process is generally recognized. In declining to uphold a late levy, this court stated: The process of assessing property for taxation and the levy and extension of taxes against that property is a complex one involving thousands of taxing bodies and the cooperation of numerous public officers. Delay at any stage of the process is likely to result in substantial added expenses in the form of extra employees or overtime pay required by county clerks and treasurers who receive late valuation statistics from assessing officials or delayed levy totals from taxing bodies: and when the distribution of taxes is untimely, taxing bodies are burdened with the expense and interest of tax anticipation warrants essential to their continued operation. Were we somehow to sustain this tardy levy, we would simply add greater uncertainty and confusion in an already less than efficiently operating system. Board of Education of Community Unit School District No. 16 v. Barrett (1977), 67 Ill.2d 11, 14-15, 7 Ill.Dec. 102, 364 N.E.2d 89. Moreover, it is generally recognized that the county clerk must have a reasonable time for the preparation of the tax books and the extension of taxes after a levy is made. The General Assembly has required the assessor's books to be returned by a specified day, and all taxes to be levied by a designated period, that the clerk may, after that time, and before the day he is required to deliver the books, have time to prepare them and extend all the taxes. ( Mix v. People ex rel. Pierpoint (1874), 72 Ill. 241, 244.) Section 16 merely allows the county clerk the opportunity to decide whether a collection-year levy ordinance is filed in sufficient time to be included in the tax extension process for collection in that particular year. The guidelines to assist the county clerk in that decision are necessarily found within the process as prescribed within the Revenue Act and reviewed here previously in detail. Such standards need not be specific or particular. ( Cf. Rodman v. Department of Revenue (1972), 51 Ill.2d 314, 282 N.E.2d 706 (use of word substantially to guide administrative discretion held sufficient); Metropolitan Sanitary District of Greater Chicago v. United States Steel Corp. (1968), 41 Ill.2d 440, 243 N.E.2d 249; Village of Itasca v. Luehring (1954), 4 Ill.2d 426, 123 N.E.2d 312.) It would be impossible and undesirable for the legislature to draft rigid nondiscretionary standards which would embrace each and every decision to extend taxes for ordinances filed in the collection year, for the surrounding circumstances would seldom be the same. Cf. Hepner v. County Board of School Trustees (1956), 8 Ill.2d 235, 242, 133 N.E.2d 39. The parties refer to Stofer v. Motor Vehicle Casualty Co . Stofer held that the legislature, in delegating regulatory authority to an administrative agency or official, must sufficiently identify: (1) the persons and activities potentially subject to regulation; (2) the harm sought to be prevented; and (3) the general means intended to be available to the administrator to prevent the identified harm. ( Stofer, 68 Ill.2d at 372, 12 Ill.Dec. 168, 369 N.E.2d 875.) While Stofer concerned the delegation of authority to an official to develop an entire scheme of regulation, its standards can have application to the delegation to an official of a single regulatory decision. In this case, it is quite clear from section 16 that the persons and activities subject to the county clerk's decision are residents of governmental units and persons involved in the tax extension process and the activities of that process, itself. The harm expressly sought to be prevented by section 16 is that concerning the incursion of costly interest rates. The additional harm sought to be prevented, one generally known and accepted, concerns the avoidance of inefficiency and delay in extending and collecting taxes. The general means to prevent this harm is the legislated option to extend taxes for collection, that arise from a collection-year ordinance filing, during that particular year or allow their extension and collection to occur the following year. With section 16 and the Revenue Act, we believe the legislature has sufficiently identified the bounds of the county clerk's decision. In conclusion, we determine that the Debt Reform Act in combination with the Revenue Act provides sufficient guidelines to assist the county clerk in accepting a collection-year filing of a levy ordinance under section 16. The county clerk is not allowed unbounded discretion under the Debt Reform Act and the Revenue Act, and section 16 does not thereby result in an improper delegation of legislative authority to the county clerk. The judgment of the circuit court, denying the collector's motion for partial summary judgment and sustaining the tax objections based on the Debt Reform Act, is accordingly reversed. Reversed.