* Tribune…

Deputy Gov. Andy Manar, Pritzker’s budget point person, earlier this month issued a memo to state agency heads advising them to identify possible budget cuts, writing “opposition” to the governor’s revenue proposals was “significant enough.” The memo implied that if the legislature doesn’t pull together support for Pritzker’s revenue plans, state program spending could be on the chopping block.

“The Governor will not sign an unbalanced budget. Therefore, we must prepare to implement a potential balanced budget scenario with $800 million less in available revenue,” Manar wrote. “While we do not know which specific programs would be impacted should the General Assembly choose to not pass the revenue package, we think it is prudent to prepare for the possibility.” […]

State Rep. Will Guzzardi, who is a part of a House Democrats’ working group on budgetary matters, downplayed the level of opposition against the governor’s proposal cited in Manar’s memo.

“I think ‘opposition’ is too strong a word from what I’ve been hearing from my colleagues. Some of these ideas are new to some of my colleagues,” said Guzzardi, of Chicago. “There’s some education that folks need to do.”

* Andy Manar was on Jak Tichenor’s program late last week…

We were just simply putting agencies on notice that, while the governor proposed what we think was a solid budget back in February, there may be some changes that are coming from the legislature, and those things take time to implement. So I have no doubt this will come together in the coming week or two and we will again pass, now, our sixth balanced budget in a row.

* Charlie Wheeler brought up something that I pointed out to subscribers when Manar’s letter first went out. Agencies were advised to focus on cutting things like grants…

I think that was a message directed, as I said last week, not so much at the department heads as it was directed at the lawmakers. Because some of the programs, some of the most costly programs the state has, for example, the school funding formula that’s not going to be cut. … But grants are other things that are smaller sums individually. … Like a grant to a local park district to improve a playground, or a grant to local school to maybe buy some new equipment … Those are the kinds of things that lawmakers particularly enjoy, because when the ribbon is cut, ‘I’m the legislator, I’ll be there to cheer for the ribbon being cut. Now look you got this beautiful new facility. And of course, I helped get it for you.’

* The Question: How do you see this session playing out?