The Special Mediator or the court, or both if necessary, shall facilitate the computation and production of this financial baseline unless the Joint Committee elects to conduct negotiations without the assistance of the Special Mediator. The financial baseline shall serve as the predicate to: (i) the annual contributions to be made by each unit of local government to the costs of providing fire and emergency medical services to the service area established for the proposed Regional Fire Protection Agency; and (ii) for the court's findings pursuant to subsection (f) of this Section.
The Joint Committee may take note or give due consideration to available resources, studies, and plans that may facilitate the resolution of issues relating to the terms of an agreement. Negotiations may continue for a period of 90 days or, if the court determines that additional time will facilitate agreement, longer.
If no agreement is reached, the court shall dismiss the petition. If an agreement is reached, the court shall schedule an evidentiary hearing with notice to determine if the terms of the agreement are in compliance with the requirements of subsection (f) of this Section. The expenses of the Special Mediator shall be apportioned equally among the included units of local government unless the parties agree otherwise in the intergovernmental agreement.
If the intergovernmental agreement has been approved by the governing bodies of at least 2 units of local government included in the original petition, then the petition may proceed, provided that the agreement is also executed by at least 2 of 3 Joint Committee representatives from each affected unit of local government included in the original petition. The units of local government that did not consent to inclusion shall be dismissed, and an amended petition on behalf of the consenting units of local government shall be scheduled for an evidentiary hearing.
The persons or entities, or their duly authorized representatives, that shall have standing to present evidence at the hearing are the petitioners, the units of local government that sought to be included in the proposed Agency, and the representatives of each collective bargaining unit that is a party to a collective bargaining agreement with a fire protection jurisdiction within a unit of local government included within the proposed Agency.
If the court finds, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the petition is supported by a proper intergovernmental agreement, the court shall enter an order certifying the proposition to the proper election officials, who shall submit the question of the creation of the proposed Agency to the legal voters of each included unit of local government at the next election. Notice of the election shall be given and the election conducted in the manner provided by the general election law. The notice shall state the boundaries of the proposed Agency.
The question shall be submitted in substantially the following form:
Shall the service areas of (names of existing units of local government to be combined) be combined to create the (name of the Regional Fire Protection Agency)?
Responses shall be recorded as "Yes" or "No".
A written statement of the election results shall be filed with the court. If, in each unit of local government included within the boundaries of the Regional Fire Protection Agency, a majority of the voters voting on the question favor the proposition, then the court shall issue an order stating that the Agency has been approved.
50 ILCS 741/25