August 21, 2015
To the Honorable Members of
The Illinois House of Representatives,
99th General Assembly:
Today I return
House Bill 4113 with specific recommendations for change.
First, House
Bill 4113 exempts printing contracts for the student newspaper at Southern
Illinois University’s Carbondale campus from the Illinois Procurement Code for
one year, during which time the bill requires those contracts be publicly
awarded through an alternative process. Student newspapers are a vital part of
vibrant and engaged student populations at all universities. The changes made
by this bill – which provide more flexibility to the student newspapers while
ensuring a public procurement process – should apply to all public universities
and colleges during the one-year trial period.
Second, the
bill increases the voting representation of students on the Southern Illinois
University Board of Trustees. Current law provides the student bodies of both
campuses with representation on the Board of Trustees; one of those
representatives is a voting member, and the other is a non-voting member. The
bill would permit both representatives to be voting members.
Student
representatives are valuable additions to the Board of Trustees. But on a board
of just nine or ten voting trustees (depending on whether one or both student
representatives are voting members), having two student voting members is not
necessary or advisable. The Board of Trustees must consider difficult budgetary
issues, academic requirements, and student conduct and disciplinary issues. The
long-term views of professionals must be given appropriate weight. The current
make-up allows for the students’ perspective to be heard without diluting the
insight gained from the other trustees’ years of professional experience. As
such, I recommend that no change be made to the composition of the Board of
Trustees.
Therefore, pursuant
to Section 9(e) of Article IV of the Illinois Constitution of 1970, I hereby
return House Bill 4113 with the following changes:
On
page 1, line 7, by deleting “Southern Illinois”; and
On
page 1, by replacing line 11 with “at any public institution of higher
education as defined in the Board of Higher Education Act.”; and
On page 1, by replacing lines 12 and 13 with “Notice
of each contract entered into by a public institution of higher education that
is related to the procurement of printing”; and
On page 1, line 17, by replacing “Southern
Illinois University” with “The public institution of higher education”;
and
On page 2, by deleting lines 10 through 24; and
By deleting pages 3 through 5; and
On page 6, by deleting lines 1 through 7.
With these
changes, House Bill 4113 will have my approval. I respectfully request your
concurrence.
Sincerely,
Bruce Rauner
GOVERNOR