Illinois lawmakers have two weeks to get together a spending plan. Officials from cities across the state are going on the offensive to keep lawmakers from balancing the budget by raiding their pockets.

The DuPage Mayors and Managers Conference launched a video series and website – ProtectMyTown.us –  to highlight how a proposed cut in their share of state income taxes would affect their residents.

County Board President Toni Preckwinkle on Wednesday acknowledged problems with Cook County Health and Hospitals System’s billing procedures, but took issue with an inspector general report that found estimated revenue losses of $165 million over three years due to widespread errors.

Preckwinkle, who spoke alongside Health and Hospitals System CEO John Jay Shannon, said other recent financial audits found that the system’s finances were healthy and in good standing. Nevertheless, she said, the Health and Hospitals System is “developing competencies” when it comes to addressing billing changes brought on by the national Affordable Care Act and has seen improvement.

The Illinois State Board of Education took on sweeping authority to supervise special education at Chicago Public Schools on Wednesday, voting to appoint an outside monitor who for at least three years will have to approve any changes to the district’s special ed policies and procedures.

ISBE will now meet with CPS to map out what state schools Superintendent Tony Smith described as “the road to transformation” after officials concluded that the district’s 2016 overhaul of special ed violated a swath of federal law and regulations.

Waldemar Majcher fell behind on his credit card bills around 2005. The Chicago resident had recently lost his job working at a catering company and was paying his father’s medical bills.

In 2008, a collection agency took him to court and obtained a court order known as a “judgment” allowing it to be more aggressive in pursuing him. That meant his debt began to be subject to the state-set annual interest rate of 9 percent.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to create a new and permanent designation for “mobile merchants” that allows non-food items to be sold from trucks parked legally on Chicago streets was stopped dead in its tracks Wednesday .

The City Council’s License Committee postponed a vote on the mayor’s ordinance after aldermen complained that they weren’t fully briefed and that the new category would create a double-standard that treats the heavily-regulated food truck industry unfairly and, potentially, illegally.

There’s a good chance Andrew Gasser isn’t going anywhere.

The Algonquin Township highway commissioner’s office space at 3702 Route 14 had been a center of controversy before officials met for their monthly meeting Monday night – and trustees voted to table a second vote on whether to sequester Gasser to Building 6.

Consolidation is a concept taking over much of the conversation in McHenry County.

The debate now has surfaced on the McHenry County Board – a discussion Chairman Jack Franks is calling long overdue.