For almost a year Gov. Bruce Rauner and one of the state’s largest unions have unsuccessfully tried hammering out a new contract for nearly 40,000 public employees. Tensions escalated Friday when Rauner accused the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) of bargaining in bad faith.

Rauner is now asking the state’s Labor Relations Board to determine whether negotiations have hit an impasse. If the board says yes, the AFSCME will be forced to decide if it will accept Rauner’s last, best offer or go on strike – something the union has never done before.

Joining us to discuss the matter are Anders Lindall, public affairs director for AFSCME Council 31; andJohn Tillman, CEO of the Illinois Policy Institute.

By her own admission, Chicago Police Officer Allyson Bogdalek was “untruthful” during a 2011 court hearing for Ranceallen Hankerson, who was charged with armed robbery and attempted murder in connection with a violent liquor store stick-up on the South Side a year earlier.

While under oath on the stand, Bogdalek told the courtroom she hadn’t shown the liquor store owner – who was shot in the leg during the 2010 robbery – a photo spread with Hankerson’s picture prior to his arrest.

If you’re looking for something good amid all the rotten news in Illinois, here’s a little something: Gov. Bruce Rauner says there’s some agreement on the fundamentals of a pension reform plan.

That’s not to say that a deal is imminent, he cautioned.

“The president of the Senate (John Cullerton) and I agree on what it’s going to take to have a constitutional pension reform, and the speaker’s staff is not disagreeing. I can’t say they’ll be out there proactively being positive, but they’re not really disagreeing. And that’s a big deal,” Rauner said.

The fallout over the killing of Laquan McDonald and other police-involved shootings has led to a wave of legislation to overhaul how police interact with the public, including measures that would require all Chicago police officers to wear body camerasand police departments throughout Illinois to rely on nonlethal force when dealing with a suspect.

Other newly introduced bills would make footage from body cameras more available to the public, attempt to limit encounters with police altogether by allowing officers to give nonviolent offenders notices to appear in court instead of making an arrest and require police to maintain liability insurance.

Despite the flood of legislation, the ideas are in the early stages and likely would face many changes should they move forward at all. It’s an election year, meaning lawmakers frequently introduce bills to garner headlines even as the General Assembly is loath to take up controversial issues before facing voters. Add to that the ongoing budget impasse that’s sucked most of the oxygen out of the Capitol and the hurdles only grow.

A co-founder of Cardinal Growth — the venture capital company that bankrolled City Hall projects involving former Mayor Richard M. Daley’s son — has agreed to pay $1.5 million to the federal government, which seized the company four years ago for failing to repay $21.4 million it borrowed from taxpayers.

Robert J. Bobb Jr., a former federal prosecutor who co-founded Cardinal Growth, agreed to pay the U.S. Small Business Administration by last Friday, avoiding a battle in federal court. Bobb also agreed to cooperate with regulators hoping to recover more of the tax dollars that he borrowed to invest in various companies.

The Chicago Public School system is in shambles, worsened by a combination of recent events. First is that CPS has received several credit downgrades, attaining that all-too-familiar Chicago characteristic: ‘junk bond’ status. Second is that CPS is dealing with a $480 million budget shortfall that it wants the also-broke Illinois state government to cover. Third is that Chicago’s school system, already facing academic failure, may cut staff and close facilities. And compounding all this is that CPS must deal with a Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) who, oblivious to reality, keeps demanding more for itself.

This latter conflict is part of an ongoing battle between Chicago’s public school management and labor to agree on pay. Currently, the median annual salary for Chicago teachers is $76,000, or $14,000 more than average city residents with a graduate or professional degree. There are also generous retirement benefits; for example, teachers who retired after 2011 receive $77,000 annual pensions. Meanwhile, they work in a school system with low graduation rates, short school days, declining enrollment, and vast structural debt, including a pension system that’s only 51.9% funded.

The city’s response–largely thanks to Mayor Rahm Emanuel–has been to close schools, cut staff, lengthen days, and experiment with charters. But the teacher’s union has resisted this and just about every other reform imaginable, frequently protesting, and even striking in 2012.

Gov. Bruce Rauner has asked the Illinois Labor Board to rule on whether talks with the union representing a large number of state workers have reached an impasse.

Although the battle will be portrayed as Rauner trying to hurt working families, it also can be seen as a move to help the state’s taxpayers.

The administration claims the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), which represents about 30,000 state workers, has not bargained in good faith and that talks have reached an impasse. The administration claims AFSCME has refused to negotiate on terms that 17 of the state’s other unions have accepted.