Get the latest news from around Illinois.
Chicago Tribune: Senate leaders want to grab momentum for massive budget plan next week
Illinois Senate leaders have set Wednesday as a target date for passage of a sweeping plan aimed at moving the state past its lengthy budget gridlock, believing a quick vote could quell growing lobbying efforts against it and put pressure on a noncommittal Illinois House.
Speaking Thursday to the Chicago Tribune editorial board, Democratic Senate President John Cullerton and Senate Republican leader Christine Radogno also critiqued political positions taken by their fellow party leaders key to the long, ongoing stalemate.
Chicago Sun-Times: Senate leaders push budget plan, won’t cap income tax hike
Illinois Senate leaders will have to persuade House Speaker Michael Madigan to put a stamp on a “grand bargain” budget package of reforms and revenue in his chamber — even if it includes a term limits constitutional amendment targeting “long term leadership.”
In other words, him.
State Journal-Register: A new tax on sodas, sugary drinks? It might be part of Illinois budget deal
A proposition to tax sugary beverages is being revived as part of the Illinois Senate’s “grand bargain” to pass a state budget.
Senate Bill 9 will tax any beverage that has five grams of sugar or more, meaning drinks like soda and certain juices will be affected. The bill requires distributors to impose a penny-per-ounce tax on retailers, which would produce an estimated $560 million for the state.
Fox Illinois: Rauner vs. AFSCME Fight Costing The State
For almost two years AFSCME, the state’s largest public employee union, and Governor Bruce Rauner’s Administration have been at odds over a new contract.
Now the Governor’s Office says the battle is costing the state more than a million dollars in outside fees.
Chicago Tribune: Chicago's poor credit rating boosts taxpayer tab for borrowing by tens of millions
Chicago taxpayers are on the hook for tens of millions of dollars in additional borrowing costs over the next two decades, after interest rates on nearly $1.2 billion in city bonds Thursday came in several percentage points higher than comparable issues in cities with solid credit ratings.
The interest rates on the bulk of the bonds — $887.5 million in tax-exempt borrowing — ranged from 5.8 percent to 6.2 percent, municipal bond analysts said. That’s more than 3 percentage points higher than rates typically paid by cities with benchmark AAA ratings, they said.
Crain's Chicago Business: Springfield stalemate may kill plan for I-55 toll lanes
Springfield’s budget stalemate may be claiming a major new victim: a generally well-received plan to expand capacity on the congested Stevenson Expressway (I-55) by adding two new toll lanes in its median strip.
Gov. Bruce Rauner’s administration floated the plan more than a year ago and has had what it termed positive discussions with at least 18 construction groups interested in bidding to build and operate the toll lanes.
State Journal-Register: Jesse White wants ads on license renewal reminders to offset cost
Secretary of State Jesse White has called for legislation that would allow advertisements to be printed on license renewal reminders.
His office is pursuing the advertisements in order to afford the cost of mailing them out. During the latter half of 2015, the renewal notices weren’t mailed due to the Secretary of State’s Office lacking the resources to do so.
Chicago Tribune: Patti Blagojevich: Obama not commuting ex-gov.'s sentence 'crushing'
Patti Blagojevich is “disappointed” husband and ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich didn’t make President Barack Obama’s list of 300-plus federal inmates whose sentences were cut short.
As the hours wind down on his presidency, Obama on Thursday commuted the sentences of 330 federal inmates convicted of drug crimes but left Blagojevich, who is serving a 14-year federal sentence for public corruption, off the list.
Chicago Tribune: Chicago's top lawyer preparing to depart amicably but amid controversy
Chicago Corporation Counsel Stephen Patton is exiting City Hall, the Tribune has learned, with a former White House attorney expected to be named to the city’s top legal office by the middle of next month.
Sources with knowledge of Patton’s plans said he had long planned to see the city through the publication of a critical U.S. Department of Justice report on the Chicago Police Department’s use of force and discipline before departing. A spokesman for Patton, who has held the job for six years under Mayor Rahm Emanuel, did not immediately comment.
Chicago Sun-Times: D.C. lawyer to become Emanuel’s next corporation counsel
A Washington attorney whose law firm helped guide the city through the U.S. Justice Department’s investigation of the Chicago Police Department has been chosen by Mayor Rahm Emanuel to replace departing Corporation Counsel Steve Patton.
Edward Siskel, a former deputy White House Counsel under President Barack Obama, also served as a deputy attorney general in the Department of Justice.
Associated Press: U of Illinois looking to increase enrollment by 15%
University of Illinois trustees are to be presented with an ambitious plan to increase enrollment by nearly 15 percent at the system’s three campuses.
School officials say University of Illinois President Tim Killeen will present the plan to the Board of Trustees at their meeting Thursday in Chicago. The plan’s goal would have more than 93,600 students enrolled at the school’s campuses in Urbana-Champaign, Chicago and Springfield over the next five years.
NBC 5 Chicago: Rauner Once Again Attempting to Sell Thompson Center: Report
Gov. Bruce Rauner and top Illinois Republicans are trying again to sell and demolish Chicago’s James R. Thompson Center, according to Crain’s Chicago Business.
Sen. Christine Radogno and Rep. Jim Durkin, the state’s ranking Republicans, are reportedly introducing legislation that would allow the state to sell the massive Thompson Center and move state workers to leased space elsewhere. Rauner’s plan requires legislation to begin the formal process of seeking a sale of the enormous government building, according to the report.
Northwest Herald: McHenry County Board shoots down Jack Franks' advisory tax freeze referendum request
An advisory referendum asking whether property taxes should be frozen will not appear on the April 4 ballot.
The McHenry County Board, citing its rules that ordinances first should go through committee, voted Tuesday evening, 17-7, to remove the ballot proposal from the agenda, denying it a direct vote. The move was a Republican rebuke to new board Chairman Jack Franks, D-Marengo, who announced at last week’s Committee of the Whole that he wanted the question on the ballot in which voters will elect their representatives to the local governments that levy property taxes.