An agency may include with its rules, as footnotes, the citations and brief digests of court cases and Attorney General's opinions. Footnotes shall be numbered in sequence, and the text of such footnotes shall be at the bottom of the same page where the footnotes appear in the text of the rule. Footnotes shall be the only notes allowed to be numbered in this manner.
Occasionally an agency may need to explain something within the text of its rules; such explanation may not fit the normal format for codification. In such instances, an agency note may appear. The use of agency notes is discouraged. If the use of such a note is necessary, the agency shall contact the Index Department for the proper procedure prior to proposing rules or amendments, or prior to adopting emergency or peremptory rules or amendments, containing agency notes, since agency notes may take several forms. In addition, agency notes shall fit within the margin requirements of the subsections to which they refer, and shall not be labeled except by "Agency Note" unless otherwise authorized by the Index Department, and shall not contain either subsections or lettered or numbered phrases. Any agency notes included in an agency's rules are considered part of the rule and must be adopted, amended, or repealed in the same manner as the rules.
Occasionally, in codification, the Administrative Code Division may add an editor's note which cross references the rules of two or more agencies, explains a particular way the rule was codified or explains Administrative Code database style. The Index Department is the only agency allowed to add editor's notes to a rule since the Department is the Editor of the Illinois Administrative Code. Such notes are not part of the rule but are used solely for informational purposes to aid the reader.
Ill. Admin. Code tit. 1, § 100.390
Amended at 18 Ill. Reg. 13067, effective August 11, 1995