* Speaker Madigan again voiced support yesterday for shifting employer pension payments away from the state and onto universities and suburban and Downstate schools…

“If you look at the current (state pension) payment, 78 percent of the payment goes to two systems where the members never worked for the state of Illinois,” Madigan said, referring to the Teachers Retirement System and State University Retirement System. “There’s got to be a sharing of the cost.”

Downstate school districts fear that shifting pension costs to them will force serious cutbacks in other areas, including education programs.

* But I’m pretty sure this part is new…

[Rep. Elaine Nekritz], Madigan’s representative on a working group trying to control pension costs, said that if overall pension costs can be reduced, the expense to school districts may be 1 percent to 1.5 percent of their payrolls. She said many districts should be able to absorb that cost.

Man, they’re going to have to make a whole lot of cuts to get costs down to such a low percentage of payroll.

…Adding… Speaking of pensions, Speaker Madigan’s constitutional amendment to require a three-fifths vote before pension benefits could be increased apparently wouldn’t have stopped any pension sweetener in the past…

Henry Bayer, executive director of AFSCME Council 31, says a review of pension votes over the years shows none of them were close.

“If this amendment had been in the (Illinois) Constitution, those benefits would have passed with those votes. Thankfully, it would not have prevented those benefits from taking effect.”

* Check out the last two sentences…

Local legislators and economic development officials agree enterprise zones are a valuable tool to attract and retain business.

The zones are in jeopardy of expiring unless the Illinois General Assembly acts.

State Sen. Darin LaHood, R-Dunlap, said something dire concerning enterprise zones just may come up. LaHood said he is supportive, but hears Illinois Speaker of the House Michael Madigan is not.

“In the Senate, I think, it will pass by a large majority,” LaHood said. “There could be a problem in the House. I’ve heard Madigan wants to let them all expire and then turn it into a lottery.”

I hadn’t heard that one, but interesting.

* And this is an SJ-R Tweet posted during Chamber of Commerce CEO Doug Whitley’s introduction of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker yesterday…

Wow. Whitley just said Quinn has “socialist tendencies.”

But nobody actually covered the over the top quote except for Illinois Issues’ blog…

Even our governor, who as most all of you know, has had very liberal tendencies, very socialist tendencies for years. Even some might say radical tendencies.

Um, OK. Wow.

But Whitley did go on to say this…

A month ago [Quinn] stood up and gave a budget message that was not too much different than what you and I and the Illinois chamber would like to hear our chief executive officer talk about.”

…Adding… Chris Wetterich explains why the quote wasn’t used…

I asked Whitley about the “socialist tendencies” charge after Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s speech, but it got whacked from the story I filed. He claimed he was trying to compliment Quinn, however backhandedly it may have been.

“What I was saying is that I think Governor Quinn has grown in this job,” Whitley said. “I think he’s saying things today that I did not anticipate or would not have anticipated him to say five or 10 years ago. He’s talking about jobs. He’s going to plant openings. He’s trying to change the fiscal and budgetary issues of the state, which I don’t think he was particularly conscious of in his prior roles. It’s not the same Pat Quinn that was in the peanut gallery for years.”