SPRINGFIELD – Next year's state budget needs to be cut by between $4 billion and $6 billion, Senate Republicans said Thursday.

And they pledged to unveil next week what Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno, R-Lemont, called a "menu" of possible budget cuts.

Both Senate Democrats and Gov. Pat Quinn's office downplayed the Republican announcement, saying that they're eager to see the proposals.

But Democrats on the other side of the Capitol rotunda are signaling that Quinn's proposed budget for next year will need to be slashed.

The presidents of Northern Illinois and Southern Illinois universities were warned at budget hearings Thursday that they may not receive the "flat" budgets – no increase or decrease in funding – that Quinn's budget provides.

"If last year we were with a big orange of revenue," said Higher Education Appropriations Committee Chairman Kenneth Dunkin, D-Chicago, "this year it's a lemon in size. Your percentage will probably be wherever the revenue is. The governor did not reduce any higher education budget. That doesn't necessarily mean that we're of that same thought process."

It's a new world, Dunkin said, and "we have to do what we were elected to do here."

House Democrats have released revenue projections that are about $750 million less than Gov. Quinn's and more than a billion dollars below those of the Legislature's Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability. The Democrats say that appropriations will be made based on the most conservative estimates.

Meanwhile, the Senate Republicans say that without billions of dollars in budget cuts next year, the state could have a cumulative budget deficit of as much as $22.6 billion in five years.

"Unless we reform spending, we're not going to get out of this," Radogno said. "We're in a situation where if you put in some cuts, we'll reap the benefits multifold in a few years."

Sen. Pamela Althoff, R-McHenry, was even more dramatic.

"This isn't just the Titanic. This is the Hindenburg crashing into the Titanic," she said. "We are on a very bad path. People need to understand what's going on."

Still, the Republicans declined to disclose any of their budget-cutting ideas until next week.

"I don't want to focus today on the cuts. That's the very reason that we're not trotting them out, because I don't want the story to be about the cuts today. I want the story to be about what's going to happen if we don't cut," Radogno said.

She said that "everything needs to be on the table."

Radogno said she would guarantee at least 15 Republican votes for every one of the budget-cutting ideas her caucus will propose.

The Republicans ruled out anything beyond what Radogno called "strategic borrowing." The Quinn administration wants to borrow more than $8.5 billion to restructure the state's debt.

"All borrowing does is mask the deficit. That's all it does," Radogno said. "And then when you have to start paying the borrowed money back, the deficit is bigger. It's always cheaper not to borrow."

One of the budget-cutting options, Radogno indicated, is a revision in the schedule for paying the state pension systems.

"That's one of the options, yes. But we can achieve the target number even if that is not a part of it," she said. "We want to build in flexibility here so that we can get the maximum number of votes. We may have some items that everyone in our caucus will embrace. There may be some that we'll only have 15 or so and then we'll need help from the other side."