What’s New: Illinois Legislation Affecting Fire Protection Districts and Local Governments

 By John Motylinski

The Illinois General Assembly’s most recent session produced a number of new laws relevant to fire protection districts and other units of local government. This Article highlights several of the most significant enactments including ambulance billing, employee protections, financial reporting obligations, and more.

P.A. 104-0599 (eff. January 1, 2027):

Fire Protection Districts May Now Transfer

Ambulance Fund Surpluses

Fire protection districts that operate ambulance services sometimes find themselves with surplus funds in their ambulance service accounts. Previously, there was no clear statutory authority to move that money to other district funds, even when the surplus was not needed to cover ambulance-related obligations.

P.A. 104-0599 resolves that ambiguity by adding Section 22.2 to the Fire Protection District Act. Under the new provision, a fire protection district may transfer money from its ambulance service fund to another fund controlled by the district, provided three conditions are met (1) the district has not already made a transfer from the ambulance service fund in the same fiscal year; (2) the funds remaining in the ambulance service fund after the transfer are sufficient to cover all remaining obligations payable from that fund in the current and future fiscal years; and (3) the transfer does not harm the district’s finances or public safety mission.

P.A. 104-0611 (eff. January 1, 2027):

Pensionable Salary Must Be Maintained

While on PEDA

When a firefighter, police officer, or certain other public employee is injured in the line of duty and cannot perform their duties, the Public Employee Disability Act (“PEDA”) entitles them to continued pay during their disability period.

P.A. 104-0611 strengthens those protections by clarifying that continued pay must be calculated on the same gross pay basis as the employee received before the injury and must include all pensionable salary.

This is a significant clarification. Some public employers had taken the position that PEDA-mandated pay did not need to include certain salary components that factor into pension calculations. P.A. 104-0611 forecloses that argument and ensures that an employee’s pension benefit accrual is not diminished as a result of a line-of-duty injury or illness.

P.A. 104-0681 (eff. January 1, 2027):

Expanded Confidentiality for Peer Support Services

Illinois law already provides confidentiality protections for communications made in connection with critical incident stress management and peer support services for first responders.

P.A. 104-0681 extends those protections in one important respect: the confidentiality privilege now applies regardless of whether the peer support counselor is employed by or affiliated with the same agency as the first responder seeking support. This means that firefighters and other first responders may seek peer support from counselors outside their own department without fear that the cross-agency relationship will strip away the confidentiality protections that would otherwise apply.

P.A. 104-0623 (eff. July 24, 2026):

Electronic Filing of Budget Documents with the County Clerk

P.A. 104-0623 makes a straightforward and welcome administrative improvement. Under an amendment to Section 18-50 of the Property Tax Code, taxing districts may now file their budget and appropriation ordinances electronically with the county clerk. The county clerk is required to accept such filings and to provide an electronic receipt acknowledging them. This law is effective immediately.

P.A. 104-0635 (eff. July 24, 2026):

Revised Audit and Financial Reporting Requirements

P.A. 104-0635 amends the Governmental Account Audit Act to revise which local governments must undergo an annual audit beginning with fiscal year 2027. Now, governmental units with less than $1.4 million (formerly,

$850,000) in annual revenue will be permitted to file an Annual Financial Report with the State Comptroller in lieu of a full audit.

Governmental units with more than $1.4 million in annual revenue must continue to comply with the Act’s existing audit requirements and, in addition, must file an annual financial report with the Comptroller.

Significantly, governmental units in the higher revenue tier must also make copies of both their audit report and their financial report part of their public record immediately upon completion.

P.A. 104-0732 (eff. January 1, 2027):

Ambulance Billing Mutual Aid Fix

P.A. 104-0248, enacted last session, made important changes in ambulance billing by requiring health insurers to pay local government ambulance providers at the rate established by their respective governing bodies. However, the Act was inflexible when it came to mutual aid. Applied literally, a fire department rendering mutual aid in a neighbor’s jurisdiction would only receive compensation at the neighbor’s rate. P.A. 104-0732 corrects this problem. The new law makes clear that a health insurance issuer must pay the rate set by the governmental ambulance provider rendering mutual aid-not that of their neighbor.

P.A. 104-0762 (eff. January 1, 2027):

New Website Posting Requirement for Audit and Financial Reports

Units of local government that maintain a public website will soon have a new obligation under P.A. 104-0762. The law requires such entities to post information on their website describing where their audit reports and financial reports are publicly accessible. The posting must include a link to the Illinois Comptroller’s website, where many such reports are already available to the public. Fire protection districts with public-facing websites should review their sites to ensure compliance. Districts that do not maintain a website are not affected.

Conclusion

This legislative session brought meaningful changes across several areas affecting fire protection districts-from expanded fund transfer authority and clarified PEDA pay standards to a needed fix to the ambulance billing framework. Fire districts should work with their legal counsel to assess which of these changes require updates to existing policies, procedures, or public-facing materials.