2024 Illinois Legislative Preview

The Illinois legislature reconvened on Tuesday, Jan. 16, and the Quad Cities Chamber was in Springfield meeting with legislators to promote our priorities. 2024 represents yet another opportunity for business leaders to engage with the Chamber and for policymakers to promote a pro-growth policy agenda. We hope you’ll take the time to get engaged. Take a moment to sign up for action alerts in our Advocacy Action Center. 

As we look at our policy goals, we focus on business and economic growth, quality of place, and workforce.

Business and Economic Growth

The Quad Cities Chamber is working with local legislators to introduce legislation that will make housing and mixed-use development as well as redevelopment projects more viable in Illinois. This package of bills includes improvements to the Illinois Historic Preservation Tax Credit, the creation of a middle-income housing credit, enhancement of the Brownfield Redevelopment Loan Program, and designation of Rock Island County as a River Edge Redevelopment Zone. Together, we believe these changes will be transformational for the Illinois Quad Cities.

In addition to proactive incentive development, the Chamber recognizes the importance of constructively pushing back on regulations that inhibit growth and investment to promote a healthy, competitive business environment. Addressing issues related to regulations for temporary employment, workers' compensation, mandated employee leave and non-compete agreements, among others, will be a priority this year.

Quality of Place

We look forward to supporting the City of Rock Island's newly named Port District and helping drive further collaboration between neighboring municipalities. 

Talent and Workforce Development

Investment in the childcare industry is a concern of QC businesses, with 66% recognizing that affordability and availability of childcare is a drag on their available workforce. It's a major factor when it comes to attracting and retaining employees. According to Illinois Child Care Aware, childcare costs in Rock Island County represent a higher percentage of wages than the statewide average. This puts pressure on families who may choose to have a parent stay home to take care of children, ultimately having people leave the workforce.

We also look forward to supporting funding requests that deliver resources to Black Hawk College and Western Illinois University to further drive investment in talent development. Our higher education institutions are key to developing talent that can fill the needs of employers across the region. To grow their impact, funding is necessary.