Reis Meth Legislation Approved in House

April 11, 2005

Springfield…. A bill dealing with restitution in the fight against methamphetamine sponsored by State Representative David Reis (R-Ste. Marie) has been approved by the Illinois House of Representatives and now moves on to the senate for consideration. The bill provides that the methamphetamine restitution shall be made to cover regular and overtime costs incurred by local law enforcement agencies as they continue to battle the epidemic that has hit hardest in the southern part of the state.

“This was an initiative of the Illinois House Republican Meth Crisis Task Force” said Reis, “and addresses concerns we have heard from local law enforcement agencies on how they can pay for the extra overtime, the surveillance, and the cost of capturing and cleaning up methamphetamine labs. It prioritizes that local governments will get their money first, followed by state agencies and then federal agencies.”

Reis added that county governments are facing the brunt of the cost of meth cases. HB3507 provides that if restitution is ordered by the judge, it will be the local entities that get their money first. “We are very excited to be able to address this major problem facing the budgets of our local governments and in turn for our taxpayer dollars,” said Reis.

After being stuck in a House subcommittee for a number of weeks, HB3507 was one of a several meth related bills brought to the House floor last week. “We have quite a few meth bills that came out of the task force and it was nice to see them start moving,” said Reis. “This particular bill only came out of the subcommittee on Tuesday and was approved on third reading by the full house on Thursday. While the bills were in subcommittee during our two week spring break, we did a lot of work and were very aggressive in getting the information out to our Chicago area colleagues as to how bad meth is affecting rural Illinois and what some of the other states are doing.”