(Nekritz, D-Buffalo Grove; Hastings, D-Frankfort) makes three changes to the maintenance guidelines' statute in the IMDMA.
(1) It integrates the maintenance guidelines statute with the new income-shares (child support) that takes effect July 1, 2017. It does this by raising the ceiling in the maintenance statute to make it parallel with the ceiling for the income shares statute. The maintenance statute would then apply to cases if the parties' combined gross income reaches $500,000 as opposed to the current ceiling of $250,000.
(2) It eliminates the 20 percent "cliffs" in the formula for duration of the marriage by gradually increasing the duration of maintenance (subject to the discretion of the court) by 4 percent until the parties' 20th anniversary. It makes no changes to marriages of less than five years or marriages or more than 20 years.
(3) It links the temporary relief statute (§ 501) with the maintenance statute (§ 504) so that an award of temporary maintenance under § 501 is a corresponding credit to the duration of the maintenance.
Effective June 1, 2018.