* My weekly syndicated newspaper column contains a newly revised pension payment number from the Auditor General’s office. Last week, the office claimed the coming fiscal year’s payment, including debt service, would be $5.4 billion. But then AG Bill Holland called me Friday to revise that up to $6.2 billion. The column also corrects a misinterpretation I had on the blog last week about whether unions could negotiate pension benefit changes. Turns out, they can’t…

If you thought Illinois government might get a tiny breather after raising income taxes, think again.

The Illinois House’s new revenue projection for next fiscal year, which begins in July, is $759 million lower than the governor’s. However, the House’s forecast also is $2.2 billion below Gov. Pat Quinn’s projected spending for the coming fiscal year.

Quinn’s proposed budget was whacked last month by Democrats and Republicans alike for its brutal slashing of several human service programs. But even with those Quinn cuts, if the House revenue forecast is used in the final product, they’ll still have to find $2.2 billion in additional spending reductions.

The bad news doesn’t end there. According to some revised numbers issued by the auditor general Friday, next year’s required state pension payment, including debt service, will be $6.2 billion.

Overall, that pension payment will eat up all but about a few hundred million dollars of the recently approved state income tax hike.

And there may not be anything that anybody can do about it.

The Senate Democrats released an opinion by their well-regarded chief legal counsel, Eric Madiar, last week which claimed that pension benefits for current employees are a constitutionally protected contract which cannot be altered.

But could the “contract” with those workers be changed via collective bargaining with government employee unions?

“No,” Madiar says.

As Madiar points out, Illinois’ Public Labor Relations Act does not allow public employee unions to bargain on pension issues. New York’s state law does allow union pension benefit negotiations, Madiar said, adding that New York’s Democratic governor is attempting to strike a deal with the unions to roll back pension benefits.

Madiar says his interpretation of Illinois law is that the pension obligation is an “individual right.” He compared it to the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, which he pointed out is not a “pooled” right that can be collectively negotiated away.

Madiar didn’t completely rule out the possibility of a change to the state’s labor relations law to allow unions to bargain away pension benefits on behalf of their members. But he said there likely would also have to be some “acceptance mechanism” by individuals included in the law for it to be constitutionally valid.

It’s also possible, even probable, that if a union did agree to pension givebacks, it could face decertification elections among its various units. Such a move likely then would exempt the newly nonunion employees from any new pension agreement.

In other words, if Madiar’s read is correct, there may be almost nothing that can be done about the state’s pension payment problems.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the House’s five appropriations committees will get to work on the new budget this week, using their chamber’s revenue estimates as a spending cap. So far, the Senate has not come up with its own revenue estimate, but it’s expected to be somewhere around the House’s forecast. But the two chambers aren’t even sure as of yet how they intend to reconcile any differences between their revenue forecasts and appropriations levels.

Quite a few Republicans believe the Democrats’ budget exercise is all for show. The Democratic leaders and the governor, the Republicans predict, eventually will cave to pressure from House and Senate members and activists and agree to use the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability’s revenue projection, which was $1.7 billion higher than the House’s projection. They very well could be right, but, so far, House Speaker Michael Madigan seems bound and determined to proceed with the lower figure.

And if all that news isn’t bad enough for you, the state has borrowed almost $300 million more from the federal government for its unemployment insurance program just since the beginning of January. The state’s total federal debt is close to $2.7 billion. The debt was interest free until a federal loan program expired Jan. 1. The interest payments are now starting to pile up.

Indiana just enacted a law to pay off its $2 billion in debt by 2019, which resulted in a 21 percent average cut in unemployment checks and a 13 percent tax increase for business. Illinois’ unemployment insurance rate already is one of the highest in the country.

Welcome to Illinois, where the lousy news just never seems to stop.

* Keep that revised pension payment in mind when reading this story…

Most states, on average, have to devote only about 4 percent of their budgets to pensions for government retirees.

But Illinois, in the upcoming fiscal year, will devote what amounts to roughly 15 percent of its budget toward the pensions of its retirees.

* And here’s some more bad news…

Illinois’ prepaid tuition program, a 12-year-old financial plan enabling children to attend state colleges at today’s prices when they have grown up, has the deepest shortfall of any such fund in the United States and is plowing money into unconventional — and some financial experts say high-risk — investments to close the gap.

The deficit of the College Illinois Prepaid Tuition Program also is far larger than the fund is declaring. Administrators recently adopted new calculations that mask its size.

The performance of the $1.1-billion fund is crucial to ensuring that the prepaid plan’s nearly 55,000 family participants get what they have paid for. That’s because, unlike in five other states, Illinois doesn’t promise to bail out the fund if it runs short of cash, contrary to what even some savvy investors and financial planners think. Instead, state law requires only that the governor ask the Legislature for help if the program can’t meet its commitments. Lawmakers are under no obligation to act.

* Other budget stuff…

* Lawmakers looking into reforming pension system — again

* City and State employee pensions face the chopping block

* Black Caucus Meets With Quinn To Discuss Human Services Cuts: State Rep. William Davis (D-East Hazel Crest) told Progress Illinois the meeting wasn’t antagonistic. But he didn’t mince words about what he sees as the consequences of the cuts either. The reductions are “a blueprint for African Americans going to the Department of Corrections,” Davis said. Particularly frustrating is the fact that the cuts are on the table now while corrections is reccommended for a 14.6 percent increase in General Revenue Fund dollars in next year’s budget. “We met with the governor … about other places the pain could be spread around instead of just on poor people,” said State Rep. LaShawn Ford (D-Chicago).

* Finke: Test of wills on budget: The test of wills is going to be with the Senate. Senate Democrats don’t sound like they’re going to just accept the House approach or the House revenue numbers. They could well decide the state can safely spend more money, particularly on human services programs, than the House wants to spend. At some point, they’ll both have to agree on something if the state is going to get a new budget.

* Supreme Court case could affect its own building project

* IMPACT fears effects of budget cuts: Concerned disability rights advocates from the Alton area will join others from around Illinois in Springfield on March 15 to protest the governor’s proposed budget that would cut program funding.

* Funding for prison computer improvements depends on legislature: The Illinois Department of Corrections is in the midst of a $30 million, multi-phase overhaul of its antiquated computer systems, but continuing the project depends upon the General Assembly paying for it in the next fiscal year.

* Taxes Not Withheld For U of I Grad Assistants

* $1 million contract for mayor’s daughter is on table in Dolton: If approved, LL Care and Fitness would earn $117,000 a month, totaling $1.4 million a year, to manage the Dorchester Center, an independent living and banquet facility for low-income seniors, according to records obtained by the Tribune.

* City signs $2.5 million deal for solar-powered trash compactors: The Daley administration has signed a contract with Massachusetts-based BigBelly Solar to provide at least 400 solar-powered trash compactors in the central business district, where pedestrian traffic is heaviest and trash bins need frequent pickups. Each unit holds five times the garbage of a normal trash can and has its own built-in sensor that alerts the city when it’s full. There’s also an attached container for recyclables.

* Treasurers want tax sale reform softened: The Illinois County Treasurers Association is pushing back against a reform bill sponsored by state Sen. Bill Haine, D-Alton, aimed at making delinquent tax sales fairer and more transparent across the state. Specifically, the treasurers group wants Haine to amend provisions in his bill requiring all county treasurers to videotape and audiotape delinquent property tax sales and to use automated bidding procedures. Such mandates would be too costly for some of the state’s smaller counties to put into place, said Dan Welch, the group’s president.

* Transit board seats give elected officials a second public paycheck