There was no action on a budget during the first day of a special session of the General Assembly.
Summoned by Governor Rauner for a ten-day session on the budget, lawmakers were back at the State Capitol yesterday, but there won't be a vote soon.
Speaker Michael Madigan says his members are engaged in the process, focused for the next ten days on solving the budget deficit problem. Madigan though hasn't scheduled votes on the GOP plan Governor Rauner favors, opting instead for hearings on Rauner's plans for workers comp reform and a property tax freeze.
Senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth are warning Governor Rauner and the leaders of the legislature that the state stands to lose more than two-billion-dollars if there's no state budget by July 1st.
Durbin and Duckworth sent a letter to the leaders reminding them that without a budget, the state won't have the legal authority to spend federal funds on more than 700 road projects. Those projects employ some 25-thousand people. The senators' letter says Illinois can't afford the costs and further economic damage that a construction shutdown would produce.