“This pilot is a win for Illinois taxpayers,” said Governor Rauner. “Our administrative hearing process is broken. This website provides needed transparency and timeliness to the process. This is another huge step in our IT transformation efforts.”
Administrative hearings are quasi-judicial proceedings, and some look identical to trials. There are more than 100,000 administrative hearing matters opened each year across state agencies. Administrative hearings cover wage disputes, child support claims, professional licensing decisions, permits, and the range of State services and benefits available to Illinoisans. These hearings govern hundreds of important interactions between the state, its citizens and businesses.
This pilot is the first comprehensive effort to analyze the efficiency and quality of the state's administrative hearing's process. The Bureau's initial findings included inefficient caseloads, poor resource allocation across agencies, and confusing and conflicting rules that make it very challenging for agencies to do their work well and for citizens to understand their rights. This website is a step in curing these problems and improving how the state administers justice.
The pilot Bureau website also allows learning about day-to-day pilot activities, including the launch of cross-training and case sharing with the Department of Labor, Department of Public Health, and Department of Revenue. In just one month, case sharing between these three agencies doubled the number of Labor cases heard, from 100 to 200.
In April 2016, Governor Rauner signed Executive Order 2016-06, which created the pilot Bureau of Administrative Hearings in CMS in an effort to reduce the backlog of administrative hearings in Illinois.
The pilot Bureau website can be found here.