(35 ILCS 645/5-10)

Sec. 5-10. Municipal tax review; requests for information.

(a) A municipality may conduct an audit of fees under this Act to determine the accuracy of the fees paid by an electricity deliverer.

(b) Not more than once every 2 years, a municipality that has imposed a fee under this Law may, subject to the limitations and protections stated in Section 16-122 of the Public Utilities Act, request any information from an electricity deliverer that the municipality reasonably requires in order to perform an audit under subsection (a). The information that may be requested by the municipality includes, without limitation:

(1) in an electronic format, the database used by the electricity deliverer to determine the amount due to the municipality; provided, however, that, if the municipality has requested customer-specific billing, usage, and load shape data from an electricity deliverer that is an electric utility and has not provided the electric utility with the verifiable authorization required by Section 16-122 of the Public Utilities Act, then the electric utility shall remove from the database all customer-specific billing, usage, and load shape data before providing it to the municipality; and

(2) in a format used by the public utility in the ordinary course of its business, summary data, as needed by the municipality, to determine the unit consumption by providing the gross kilowatt-hours or other units of measurement subject to the fee imposed by this Law within the municipal jurisdiction.

(c) Each electricity deliverer must provide the information requested under subsection (b) within:

(1) 60 days after the date of the request if the population of the requesting municipality is 500,000 or less; or

(2) 90 days after the date of the request if the population of the requesting municipality exceeds 500,000.

The time in which an electricity deliverer must provide the information requested under subsection (b) may be extended by an agreement between the municipality and the electricity deliverer. If an electricity deliverer receives, during a single month, information requests from more than 2 municipalities, or the aggregate population of the requesting municipalities is 100,000 customers or more, the electricity deliverer is entitled to an additional 30 days to respond to those requests.

(d) If an audit by the municipality or its agents finds an error by the electricity deliverer in the amount of fees collected or paid by the electricity deliverer, then the municipality must notify the electricity deliverer of the error. Any such notice must be issued pursuant to Section 30 of the Local Government Taxpayers' Bill of Rights Act or a lesser period of time from the date the fee was due that may be specified in the municipal ordinance imposing the fee. Upon such a notice, any audit shall be conducted pursuant to Section 35 of the Local Government Taxpayers' Bill of Rights Act subject to the timelines set forth in this subsection (d). The electricity deliverer must submit a written response within 60 days after the date the notice was postmarked stating that it has corrected the error or stating the reason that the error is inapplicable or inaccurate. The municipality then has 60 days after the receipt of the electricity deliverer's response to review and contest the conclusion of the electricity deliverer. If the parties are unable to agree on the disposition of the audit findings within 120 days after the notification of the error to the electricity deliverer, then either party may submit the matter for appeal as outlined in Section 40 of the Local Government Taxpayers' Bill of Rights Act. If the appeals process does not produce a satisfactory result, then either party may pursue the alleged error in a court of competent jurisdiction.

(e) Electricity deliverers and municipalities are not liable for any error in past collections and payments that was unknown to either the electricity deliverer or the municipality prior to the audit process unless the error was due to negligence in the collection or processing of required data. If, however, an error in past collections or payments resulted in a customer, who should not have owed a fee to any municipality, having paid a fee to a municipality, then the customer may, to the extent allowed by Section 9-252 of the Public Utilities Act, recover the fee from the electricity deliverer, and any amount so paid by the electricity deliverer may be deducted by that electricity deliverer from any fees or taxes then or thereafter owed by the electricity deliverer to that municipality.

(f) All account specific information provided by an electricity deliverer under this Section may be used only for the purpose of an audit of fees conducted under this Section and the enforcement of any related claim. All such information must be held in strict confidence by the municipality and its agents and may not be disclosed to the public under the Freedom of Information Act or under any other similar statutes allowing for or requiring public disclosure.

(g) The provisions of this Section shall not be construed as diminishing or replacing any civil remedy available to a municipality, taxpayer, or tax collector.

(h) This Section does not apply to any municipality having a population greater than 1,000,000.

(Source: P.A. 96-1422, eff. 8-3-10.)