The outlines of how Mayor Lori Lightfoot would like Springfield to help her balance her new city budget are coming into focus, and it looks like she'll be making a big, big ask.

According to knowledgeable sources in Chicago and Springfield, after weeks of preliminary maneuvering the mayor is pitching nothing less than a state takeover of the city's cash-short pension funds, which under current law will require upward of $1 billion in new city tax hikes over the next three years to reach a path to full actuarial funding. Her proposal would consolidate city pension money with smaller downstate and suburban pension funds in a new statewide system. In some cases, those non-Chicago funds are even worse off than the city's.

Insiders say Chicago might be willing to forgo some revenue it now gets from the state in exchange for relinquishing responsibility for the funds, which now are about $28 billion short of the assets they'll eventually need to pay promised benefits. To pay the cost, Lightfoot reportedly supports state legislation to tax retirement income of better-off seniors—taxing income above $100,000 a year would net roughly $1 billion annually, according to the Civic Federation—or extending the sales tax to cover high-end services such as accounting and legal advice.

Some of the money also could come from proceeds of the governor's proposed new graduated income tax. Gov. J.B. Pritzker estimated it will pull in an additional $3.4 billion a year and so far has allotted only $200 million to state pensions but nothing to local pensions.

It's far from clear that Lightfoot's proposal will fly with Pritzker. But Chicago's new mayor has some strong arguments, including the fact that, without state help, Chicago will be forced to impose property tax hikes so large they could cripple the city's and state's economy.

Lightfoot also will be able to argue that, if she has to implement huge property tax increases, Chicagoans may not be wild about backing Pritzker's vaunted graduated income tax proposal in a referendum in November 2020. The measure is favored to pass, but it's no slam dunk, requiring 60 percent voter approval.

Pritzker has been talking about pension fund consolidation, but in a different sense. The governor has a task force examining how much money could be saved by combining into one, more efficient fund hundreds of small funds, mostly for police and firefighters, that now are scattered across the state.

Lightfoot's move somewhat echoes what happened last year with Chicago Public Schools' pension fund. It still is separate from the state system that covers all other Illinois school districts, but now the state is picking up an increasing share of the cost.

Insiders also say Lightfoot has signaled she is not happy with legislation adopted last month that authorizes a gambling casino in Chicago, something that eventually should provide significant tax revenue for the city.

I've heard both that the city would like to increase the one-third cut of profits it's now scheduled to get and that it's concerned overall taxes on the Chicago casino approaching 75 percent of revenues may be so high the casino never will open.

Lightfoot's office declines to comment on that, as well as other aspects of this column.

Sources close to the matter also expect the new budget Lightfoot unveils this fall to include some strictly local levies. The best bets: an increase in the city's real estate transaction fee and a hike in taxes on ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft, which appear to be draining business from the Chicago Transit Authority. The latter would apply to rides to and from the central business district, which is well served by the CTA.

Those levies, though, are relative peanuts compared to what's needed to fill a city budget hole that Lightfoot has said is considerably larger than the $740 million estimated by aides to former Mayor Rahm Emanuel. The pension issue is a far bigger driver, taxpayers, so keep your eye on how that plays out.