That Pauper Relief Act 



By Paul E. Mathias 



LOCAL responsibility for care of 

 the poor and indigent is again be- 

 fore the General Assembly of 

 Qlinois. 



Bills transferring responsibility from 

 the counties to the down-state town- 

 ships were introduced at the Special 

 Session. The Illinois Agricultural As- 

 sociation opposed these bills as intro- 

 duced on the ground that this re- 

 sponsibility should be placed on local 

 communities uniformly throughout the 

 State. After bitter debate amendments 

 were adopted which place the responsi- 

 bility of providing relief on the town- 

 ships in Cook County outside the City 

 of Chicago, and on the City of Chi- 

 cago itself in the same manner as on 

 the townships down-state. 



The City of Chicago is used as a re- 

 lief unit because township government 

 has been abandoned within the City 

 and there is no functioning township 

 unit within the City itself. The Illinois 

 Agricultural Association is supporting 

 the bills as amended. It believes that 

 local administration of relief will re- 

 sult in substantial economies of admin- 

 istration. It also believes that if all 

 communities in the State are required 

 to bear a portion of the relief load and 

 to raise a portion of the monies ex- 

 pended for this purpose, the total 

 expenditures will be substantially re- 

 duced. There will be less competition 

 to see how much they can get regard- 

 less of the necessity for such funds. 



Our Illinois poor relief law was en- 

 acted in 1874. It placed the duty of 

 providing for the poor upon the coun- 

 ties. The law required the counties to 

 provide for the poor out of the pro- 

 ceeds of the levy for general county 

 purposes. In 1931. because of the in- 

 creasing relief load, a number of coun- 

 ties were unable to provide for their 

 poor out of the proceeds of the 2.5c 

 levy for general county purposes. The 

 Illinois constitution limits the county 

 tax levy for all county purposes to 75c 

 on the SlOO valuation unless the excess 

 over 75c has been approved by the 

 voters on a referendum. There is no 

 such limitation upon the levy made by 

 a township. Many persons argued tha+ 

 if the duty of providing poor relief 

 could be shifted to the township and 

 administered locally, that relief ex- 

 penditures could be held down to a 

 minimum. "' .' •' • ■'--■: 



^^ Po 



Moved by the necessity of raising 

 additional funds for poor relief pur- 

 poses and hoping that local adminis- 

 tration would hold relief expenditures 

 to a minimum, the General Assembly 

 in 1931 passed legislation which trans- 

 ferred the duty of providing relief to 

 the poor and indigent from the counties 

 to the townships. However, this law 

 was not uniform. It applied only in the 

 down-state counties which have town- 

 ship form of government. 



In Cook County and in the counties 

 which have three commissioners in- 

 stead of a board of supervisors, com- 

 monly called the commission-governed 

 counties, the duty of providing relief 

 was left on the county. Further, in 

 Cook County and these down-state 

 commission-governed counties, the 

 levy for relief purposes was not taken 

 out of the statutory maximum rate of 

 25c for all county purposes. As the net 

 result of this legislation, Cook County 

 and the commission-governed counties 

 were charged with the duty of provid- 

 ing relief but were required to secure 

 the relief funds together with funds 

 for all other general county purposes 

 out of the 25c county levy. ; ■ ■ 



In the 84 or 85 township governed 

 counties the duty of providing relief 

 was shifted to the townships and the 

 townships authorized to make an un- 

 limited levy for poor relief purposes. 

 The townships did make levies for re- 

 lief purposes and many of the town- 

 ships levied large amounts. However, 

 the relief burden continued to increase 

 and early in 1932 the 820,000.000 relief 

 bond issue was passed. 



More than 91% of (his bond issue 

 was used for relief in Cook County and 

 less than 9% was required for relief 

 purposes down state. This was largely 

 because of the fact that down-state 

 townships had made substantial levies 

 for poor relief purposes and were 

 exerting every effort to carry their 

 own relief load. 



In the regular session of 1933, the 

 Illinois Agricultural Association spon- 

 sored the so-called Lantz bills which 

 would have permitted the townships 

 outside of the City of Chicago and 

 Cook County, and the City of Chicago 

 itself, to levy a tax for poor relief pur- 

 poses and support their poor in the 

 same manner as was being required of 

 (Continued on page 9) 



DECEMBER, 1935 



