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.
