Section 3200.10  Definitions

"Attendance" means the documented number of visitors at the public museum's facility or facilities for the preceding calendar year.

"Capital Expenditure" means an outlay of capital that confers long-term benefits that permanently improve the property's value or usefulness.  Capital expenditures generally include, but are not limited to, one or more of the following purposes:  architectural planning and engineering design; demolition (in preparation for additional work); site preparation and improvement; utility work; new construction of buildings and structures; reconstruction or improvement of existing buildings or structures; construction of permanent exhibits; initial furniture and equipment integral to the project; replacement of currently utilized assets by a better asset; and expansion of existing buildings or facilities.

Work that constitutes repairs, maintenance or remodeling of a limited nature or scope, which is not done as part of a larger bondable project, shall not be considered bondable capital expenditures.  A non-bondable project is generally one that maintains or preserves the existing conditions, use or size of a capital asset and that is neither in the nature of a betterment nor a change to the capital asset's condition, use or size.  Generally, such work does not significantly add to the value of the capital asset nor appreciably prolong the life of the capital asset.

The following are operating or other types of expenditures that are not considered capital expenditures:

projects with a total cost of less than $25,000;

acquisition of museum collections, objects, or specimens;

feasibility studies, long-range development plans, master plans, and historical or archaeological research;

development of temporary or traveling exhibits;

repair to current exhibits;

costs of repairs or maintenance that are normally anticipated to occur;

remodeling of a limited nature or scope, that is not done as part of a larger bondable project;

costs of staff or resident labor and material;

operational and administrative expenses;

installation of fire alarms, smoke detectors, or connections of building monitoring systems to a central or off-site central monitor, unless included in a larger bondable project; and

purchase of vehicles or construction equipment.

"Care" means the keeping of adequate records pertaining to the provenance, identification and location of the museum's holdings, and the application of current professionally accepted methods to their security and to the minimization of damage and deterioration.

"Certification" means an attestation by a unit of local government that a museum that is not operated by or located on land owned by a unit of local government meets the eligibility criteria established in State law.

"Community" means the population base normally served by the public museum.

"Department" means the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

"Director" means the Director of the Department.

"Fiscal Agent" means an affiliated entity that may expend and receive funds on behalf of the public museum.  If grant funds are to be distributed to a fiscal agent on behalf of the public museum, the chief executive officer or the public museum must sign a statement certifying:

that there is an ongoing relationship between the public museum and the fiscal agent;

that the fiscal agent may incur expenses for the public museum's project; and

that grant funds will be used specifically for the public museum's project.

"Matching Funds" means local government and/or private funds committed to the proposed project.  State and federal funds are not eligible as matching funds.

"Nonprofit" means that the public museum has documentary evidence of its tax-exempt status under the regulations of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.

"Organized" means that the public museum is a duly constituted body with expressed responsibilities.

"Permanent" means that the public museum has been open to the public, for its instruction and enjoyment, for at least 2 years and is expected to continue in perpetuity.

"Professional Staff" means that the public museum has at least one paid employee, who commands an appropriate body of special knowledge and the ability to reach museological, zoological, aquarium, or botanical (whichever shall be applicable) decisions consonant with the experience of his or her peers, and who has access to and acquaintance with the literature of the field, and that such employee works sufficient hours to meet adequately the current demands of administration and care.

"Public Museum" means a facility that has been open to the public, for its instruction and enjoyment for at least two years and that is operating for the purposes of promoting cultural development through special activities or programs or performing arts and acquiring, conserving, preserving, studying, interpreting, enhancing, and, in particular, organizing and continuously exhibiting (subject to temporary interruption due to construction or catastrophe) specimens, artifacts, tangible objects, articles, documents and other things of historical, anthropological, archaeological, industrial, scientific or artistic import.

"Schedule" means regular and predictable hours which constitute substantially more than a token opening, so that access is reasonably convenient to the public.

"Tangible Objects" means specimens, artifacts, articles, documents; non-domesticated plants or animals, including fish; and other things of historical, anthropological, archeological, industrial, scientific or artistic import that form the public museum collections and have intrinsic value to history, science, art or culture.

"Unit of Local Government" means counties, municipalities, townships, special districts and units, designated as units of local government by Illinois law, which exercise limited governmental power or powers in respect to limited governmental subjects, but does not include school districts.

(Source:  Amended at 28 Ill. Reg. 2201, effective January 26, 2004)