The state House plans to set a maximum increase, according to the news agency. The announcement comes as Gov. Pat Quinn and the state's largest public employee union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, begin negotiations for the union's next contract. Its current contract expires on June 30, 2012.
"Essentially, it's the Legislature putting down a marker and saying (to the governor), 'If you go beyond this, we're not going to fund it,'" Kent Redfield, a political science professor at the University of Illinois in Springfield, told Statehouse News Online.