Article Summary
- More than 1,000 Illinois State Police vehicles have passed the threshold for replacement, but current funding levels mean it will take 18 years to replace them all, Director Brenden Kelly said.
- The cost of police vehicles has also risen to as much as $120,000.
- While lawmakers gave State Police $30 million in spending authority for each of the past three years, the actual money accrued in the State Police Vehicle fund each year has been just a fraction of that.
This summary was written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.
SPRINGFIELD — More than 1,000 Illinois State Police vehicles are near the end of their life, but the agency might not be able to replace them anytime soon.
The Illinois Department of Central Management Services recommends that vehicles in the ISP fleet be replaced every eight years or 150,000 miles, but it’s taking much longer, ISP Director Brenden Kelly told a Senate appropriations committee last month.
“At this rate with this funding mechanism we have, it will take about 18 years to replace our fleet,” Kelly said. “So while we’re not expecting a miracle in terms of some legislation to solve that for us permanently, we recognize that we’re going to have to continue to, piecemeal, find those sources of funding where they can be found.”
The problem, Kelly said, lies with the State Police Vehicle Fund. While lawmakers have appropriated $30 million to the State Police for vehicle replacement each year since fiscal year 2024, the actual revenue that goes into the fund is about a third of that amount or less. In fiscal year 2025, for example, lawmakers gave ISP $30 million in spending authority, but the agency ultimately spendt about $7 million due to the fund’s slower revenue pace.
The fund’s main revenue source comes from a $1 fee on license plates that was enacted in 2008 and the proceeds from the sale of retired ISP vehicles. The balance generally hovers around $11 million to $12 million, according to ISP.
“Our vehicle replacement fund is not keeping up with the cost of those vehicles,” Sen. Seth Lewis, R-Bartlett, a member of the Senate’s public safety appropriations committee, told Capitol News Illinois. “So our officers are spending eight hours a day in a vehicle that is eight to 10 years old with hundreds of thousands of miles on it. They don’t have the same safety standards as today’s vehicles.”
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Beginning this spring, 10% of an insurance underwriting fee paid by car insurance providers will also be devoted to the fund, which could increase its balance by a few million dollars, according to State Police. That existing fee otherwise funds State Police administration and training.
Lewis added he’s open to increasing how much of the vehicle registration fees goes toward the State Police vehicle fund. Most of the $151 registration fee goes to transportation infrastructure under current law.
“We are spending close to $56 billion; if we could come up with 20, 30 million to keep our officers safe, I want to work on that,” he said.
ISP covers more miles than any other state, Kelly said. The average car in ISP’s 2,700-vehicle fleet has 100,000 miles.
Vehicle costs
The cost of new police vehicles has also ballooned from “over a decade ago” when a new car cost $60,000, Kelly said. They now cost $120,000.
“The cost may have gone up but the funding for that has not,” Kelly said.
ISP has 1,067 cars that meet CMS’ threshold for replacement, according to ISP, but the agency has been replacing more vehicles in recent years because of mechanical issues and damage. ISP reported 24 of their cars were hit in Scott’s Law violations in 2024 and 15 in 2025. Scott’s Law requires drivers to slow down and move over when approaching an emergency vehicle on the road.
Seven cars have been hit this year as of mid-March, including three separate incidents in one day.
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The agency expects the funding from the insurance underwriting fee will allow it to replace 47 additional high-mileage cars this year. So far, 60 new vehicles have arrived during FY26.
The number of new vehicles the agency receives each year can vary based on market conditions and how long it takes for the vehicle to be outfitted for police service. ISP received 138 new vehicles in FY25 but only 43 in FY22 because of a shortage of microchips. Many of the cars on backorder that year were delivered in FY23.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
