WEDNESDAY - Legislative leaders meeting with Quinn in Chicago today confirmed after the meeting that lawmakers will return to Springfield on Tuesday, according to an Associated Press report out of Chicago. There is still no agreement on taxes or cuts to put before the members once they get back here, so it could be an interesting week.

UPDATE, 11:15 A.M. — Quinn’s office is still being coy about whether he will officially call them back next week — though, again, it’s difficult to see how he won’t, given the looming July 1 start of the new fiscal year. In an email to me just now to confirm that no special session has yet been called, a staffer again hammered at the theme of a “woefully inadequate” spending plan passed by the Legislature, one that will “force horrific cuts on many of the state’s most vulnerable people”  if more money isn’t provided. - km

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Scuttlebutt all over Springfield today is that Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn will call state legislators back to town next week to take one more attempt at passing his proposed state income tax to address a massive budget deficit.

This isn’t a surprise. Since the Legislature adjourned at the end of May with no real budget in place, and the new budget year starts July 1, it’s been assumed that Quinn would call them back to finish the work before then, and next week is the last full week of the month.

Quinn and legislative leaders have continued to meet in Chicago, trying to reach tentative agreement on either Quinn’s tax plan or something like it (he wants to bump up the state’s 3 percent flat-rate income tax to 4.5 percent to address the roughly $12 billion estimated budget deficit). Presumably, they’re also talking about how to cut the budget if no tax hike can be approved.

The administration has been putting out doomsday scenarios for months about the possible impact if lawmakers continue to refuse the hike, as they did last month: prison guards laid off to the point of danger, state police patrols drastically scaled back, seniors and toddlers booted from state-subsidized care facilities. So we may soon see how much of that is bluff.

(No official confirmation yet of next week’s session. We have calls in to the administration and will update.)