Illinois § 4

§ 4.

The Natural Heritage Fund and the Natural Heritage Endowment Trust Fund. There is established the Natural Heritage Fund. The moneys in this fund shall be used, pursuant to appropriation, exclusively by the Department for the preservation and maintenance of natural heritage lands held in the public trust. The Natural Heritage Fund shall be financed through transfers of investment income earned by the Natural Heritage Endowment Trust Fund created herebelow. The Natural Heritage Endowment Trust Fund (Trust Fund) is created as a trust fund in the State treasury. The Trust Fund shall be established in the form of an irrevocable trust in a depository bank with capital in surplus of at least $50,000,000 and approved by the State Treasurer. The Trust Fund shall be financed by a combination of private donations and by appropriations by the General Assembly. The Department may accept from all sources, contributions, grants, gifts, bequeaths, legacies of money and securities to be deposited into the Trust Fund. All deposits shall become part of the Trust Fund corpus. Moneys in the Trust Fund, are not subject to appropriation and shall be used solely to provide financing to the Natural Heritage Fund. All gifts, grants, assets, funds, or moneys received by the Department under this Act shall be deposited and held in the Trust Fund by the State Treasurer as ex officio custodian separate and apart from all public moneys or funds of this State and shall be administered by the Director exclusively for the purposes set forth in this Act. All moneys in the Trust Fund shall be invested and reinvested by the State Treasurer. All interest accruing from these investments shall be deposited in the Trust Fund. The Governor shall request and the General Assembly may appropriate funds to the Trust Fund up to an amount not to exceed a total of $2,500,000. Subject to appropriation, the Department shall pay into the Trust Fund at the end of each fiscal year the sum of $500,000 and such sum equal to the amount by which private contributions for the year exceed $500,000. Once the corpus of the Trust Fund has reached $5,000,000, any obligation of the State to provide State funds to the Trust Fund shall cease; however, additional private funds donated specifically to the Trust Fund shall be applied to the Trust Fund corpus. (Source: P.A. 94-91, eff. 7-1-05.)