In the final days of the March term of the Illinois Supreme Court, the Court allowed a petition for leave to appeal in The Board of Education of Roxana Community Unit School District No. 1. v. The Pollution Control Board, et al. Board of Education poses the question: can the challenger to a petition for certification of a system as a pollution control facility appeal directly to the Appellate Court after losing at the Illinois Pollution Control Board?

In October 2010, the respondent submitted 28 separate applications to the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, seeking certification of various systems, methods, devices and facilities as "pollution control facilities" as defined by the Property Tax Code. If the applications were granted, the Department of Revenue would supplant Madison County as the taxing authority. In August 2011, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency recommended approval of two of the requests. The following month, the Pollution Control Board accepted the recommendations and certified the two systems. The petitioner School Board moved for reconsideration, and a few weeks later, the Agency recommended approval of the remaining requests for certification. The Pollution Control Board denied the motion for reconsideration, and denied the petitioner’s motions to intervene in the remaining 26 requests for certification. The petitioner appealed the Pollution Control Board’s decisions directly to the Appellate Court.

On appeal, the petitioner contended that the Appellate Court had jurisdiction over the appeal pursuant to the Environmental Protection Act, 415 ILCS 5/41(a).   The Board contended that appellate review was possible only under the Property Tax Code, 35 ILCS 200/11-60, which limited appeal rights to applicants, not challengers.

The Appellate Court dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction. Reaffirming Citizen Against the Randolph Landfill (CARL) v. The Pollution Control Board, the Court held that review must begin at the Circuit Court, rather than reaching the Appellate Court in the first instance. Allowing a party adversely affected by a final order of the Board to directly appeal the matter to the Appellate Court would render Section 11-60 of the Property Tax Code – providing only limited appeal rights — meaningless, the Court held.

Justice Thomas R. Appleton dissented, arguing that the Environmental Protection Act, 415 ILCS 5/41(a) gave the right to appeal to anyone "who filed a complaint on which a hearing was denied." The Appellate Court should "avoid attributing to the legislature an intent to deny judicial review to a local governmental entity when the Board’s allegedly unjustified certification of a facility as a pollution-control facility deprives the local governmental entity of a substantial portion of its tax base," Justice Appleton argued.