© 2024 NPR Illinois
The Capital's Community & News Service
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Tentative Budget Deal Shaping Up As Pressure Builds ... But It's Not Fully Cooked Yet

Michael Madigan
Amanda Vinicky
/
NPR Illinois | 91.9 UIS

There's intense pressure on Illinois lawmakers to pass a budget before Friday, when a new fiscal year begins. Gov. Bruce Rauner spent hours meeting with legislative leaders Wednesday morning, and negotiations are expected to continue on and off throughout the day. 

After a year without a state budget, word is an agreement may be shaping up between the Republican governor and the Democrats who control the General Assembly.

"There's a likelihood of the bridge budget, the stopgap if you will," Republican Rep. Dan Brady, of Bloomington said in the early afternoon.

If it pans out, that'd lead to a temporary spending plan for universities, social services and government operations.

A source says that would be separate from funding for schools; something Brady calls a "tender nerve."

Democrats favor spending hundreds of millions of dollars more on education, in part to help out the financially struggling Chicago Public Schools.

A deal on that could be in the works, perhaps by allowing Chicago to raise its property taxes; however  that would fly in the face of Gov. Rauner's steadfast promotion of a property tax freeze.

Brady says there needs to be a way to avoid the perception of what Republicans and downstaters call a CPS "bailout."

Talks are extremely fluid, and negotiations continue. 

Amanda Vinicky moved to Chicago Tonight on WTTW-TV PBS in 2017.
Related Stories