State lawmakers returned to work May 27 with optimism but no real progress toward a new budget as a May 31 deadline quickly approached. House and Senate Democrats are trying to resolve differences between the competing budget proposals each chamber approv
If they can’t, the session will go into overtime for the second straight year. Senate Democrats say a brief meeting with the House Tuesday morning confirmed the two chambers agree on as much as 85 percent of a spending plan outline. It’s that remaining 15 percentùmostly spending grantsùthat is difficult to resolve.
The House approved both a budget that keeps spending mostly flat from the current year, and a much more expansive plan. The Senate came in somewhere in the middle, with about $1.7 billion in extra spending. State Sen. Donne Trotter said the $1.7 billion will need to grow to include spending the House wants in areas such as education and human services.
But how much it increases and how lawmakers pay for the extra spending remain questions. “All of those issues are there, but it goes back to how we’re going to pay for it,” said Trotter, D-Chicago. “It’s just trying to be within our means and trying to be reasonable about it.” Top budget negotiators plan to meet again Wednesday and then report back to House and Senate leadersùa process Trotter acknowledged slows down budget progress.
Lawmakers need to have an agreement by Thursday to wrap up by Saturday, he said. But Trotter and other lawmakers remain adamant they’ll do all they can to avoid a repeat of 2007, when fighting between top Democrats sent the session into a record-breaking overtime. Legislators who face re-election bids this fall and who want to get to their families and jobs back home have a “tremendous intent” to get done, Sen. John Sullivan said.
“We don’t have an appetite to do that again,” said Sullivan, DRushville Sullivan and other lawmakers also confirmed the chances of getting a new statewide capital construction program approved this spring get slimmer each day. Gov. Rod Blagojevich has publicly pushed for a construction program in recent months. He wouldn’t say this week whether he would try to keep lawmakers in town if they wrapped up a budget by Saturday.
“I’m hopeful this is the week we can see progress and see the Legislature get it done,” Blagojevich said Monday at an appearance in Chicago. Sullivan, who has been working on capital this spring, said questions about how to pay for the plan and how projects would be handled still need answers. “I’m not sure that the will is there,” Sullivan said.
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