State Comptroller Roland W. Burris recently announced his three local government advisory boards will hold a series of public meetings in October to discuss the issue of local government funding in Illinois.

The County, Municipal and Local Government Advisory Boards will meet in Champaign on Oct. 6, Rockford on Oct. 12, Peoria on Oct. 20 and Carbondale on Oct. 26. Rockford’s meeting will take place at City Hall Council Chambers, 425 East State Street at 1 p.m.

Jerry Owens, deputy director of local government fiscal programs, said, “These locations were chosen because they are large cities in fairly extreme quadrants of the state in each direction.”

Issues to be discussed include the real estate assessment process, the methods of collecting and distributing taxes, the impact of the Illinois tax system on local governments and the examination of the revenue sources now being utilized by state governments.

The meetings will be co-chaired by Doug Whitley, executive director of the Taxpayer’s Federation of Illinois, a watchdog organization for taxpayers, and Dekalb County Clerk Terry Desmond.

Desmond said he is not positive what all the issues to be discussed will include, although a recurring topic is the modification of tax allocations to reduce ever-increasing property taxes and use more income taxes.

In these hearings, the boards’ ad hoc subcommittee for studying funding for local governments will hear testimony from local government officials, revenue and finance experts and anyone from the general public wishing to voice an opinion.

Burris said he plans to attend the hearings to learn “financial concerns of the level of government closest to the people.”

“I am hopeful that these public meetings will provide meaningful dialogue and testimony that leads to an improvement in the ability of local governments to deliver efficient services to their taxpayers,” Burris said.

The committees will not convene to address specific problems. Rather, they meet each month to keep informed of current financial statistics, and the concerns of citizens to hopefully improve or modify existing tax structures.

Following the hearings, the advisory boards will prepare a report of their findings, containing recommendations and possible changes in the system.

Under state law, each advisory board consists of six certified public accountants, six local government officials and six public members, who are chosen every three years by the Comptroller.