* From the Illinois Policy Institute’s news service…

House Minority Leader Jim Durkin emerged from a Republican caucus meeting Sunday afternoon and said Democrats added a new amendment to their $36.5 billion spending bill.

Late Saturday, Speaker Michael Madigan announced a vote on a tax increase package would be held Sunday. But Durkin said that Republicans couldn’t put votes behind tax increases without knowing what’s in the spending plan.

“The Democrats made matters more complicated by filing a new spending bill within the last 15 minutes,” a visibly agitated Durkin said. “We have no idea what’s in it. To take a tax increase vote before knowing what you’re spending on, to me is irresponsible. As usual, we have not been advised what is in the new spending bill, and I think our caucus feels that is a sign of bad faith.”

Durkin said he wasn’t sure if Madigan would call the tax increase bill for a vote now or not. He said he spoke to Madigan this morning to see how the day would play out. it was “pretty brief.”

“The process gets extremely complicated and I will say it’s a step back in the negotiations on the reforms and bringing the impasse to an end,” Durkin said. “I want to do this in a fair, transparent manner. Today is not the day for it.”

* Raw video…

* I checked in with Madigan’s spokesman Steve Brown, who said the amendment “reflects the discussions that the leaders and the budget/spending groups have been holding the past few days.” There have been “daily, multiple meetings,” he said.

Brown said he didn’t think it spent more than the omnibus appropriations amendment which passed Friday, but wasn’t sure.

* The House was about to start debating the new spending proposal (an amendment to SB 6), but the Republicans requested a one-hour caucus. They’ll be back by 4:40 this afternoon.

As always, keep track of updates with our live coverage post.

*** UPDATE ***  I just spoke with Rep. Greg Harris, who is the House Democrats’ budget negotiator.

Rep. Harris said the newly filed amendment includes things like the Tier 3 pension savings the Republicans had asked for. It also increases the cuts in higher education from the House Democrats’ 5 percent to the Republicans’ preferred 10 percent. It does spend more on some stuff, like $15 million for the Department of Corrections.

Harris insisted that everything in the new amendment is identical to what the budget negotiators had agreed to. He said he didn’t know why Leader Durkin wasn’t briefed, but that Durkin would “know that it had to be filed.”

According to Harris, the new amendment spends $36.054 billion, compared to Friday’s spending plan which spent $36.449 billion. So the new amendment, according to Harris, spends $395 million less than the one which was adopted with an overwhelming bipartisan majority a few days ago.

I think people can stop freaking out now.