Sacramento -- Lawmakers returning to the Capitol from spring recess today will find efforts to fix the state's maligned workers' compensation system stuck on a rather key point: money.

How, interested parties wonder after weeks of negotiations, will elected officials guarantee businesses won't be left subjected to high premiums that many allege are driving firms from the state?

Democrats are pushing for assurances -- possibly through rate regulation -- that businesses owners won't still be left vulnerable after an overhaul. Republicans say rates will drop once the market is more competitive.

A hearing on that part of the workers' compensation debate will be chaired today by Sen. Richard Alarcon, D-Sun Valley (Los Angeles County), who wrote much of last year's reforms. Meanwhile, injured workers are expected to rally outside Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office in San Francisco, demanding their rights be preserved.

With a Friday deadline looming for signatures for a ballot initiative on the issue backed by business groups and the governor, today marks the point at which talks may more easily become arguments.

While Senate and Assembly members were out of town and Schwarzenegger enjoyed a family vacation in Hawaii, staffs of legislative leadership continued to draft a compromise bill that embodies purported agreements in principle. With no bill produced after a week of work, it was hard for anyone close to the talks to declare progress.

Prior to last week, "we had a framework where a majority of things were agreed on, and the language (staff) is coming back with doesn't match up," said one person close to the negotiations.

Schwarzenegger spokesman Vince Sollitto said staffers have been "writing, writing, writing" and attempted to reach "closure on remaining things."

"The governor has been quite clear that the time is now to reform workers' compensation," he said. "If the Legislature can't come to an agreement and send him a bill to sign, he will have to let the people do it."

Schwarzenegger has repeatedly said he prefers a legislative agreement, but has continued to urge voters to sign petitions to place the issue on the ballot.

Aspects of the $22 billion workers' compensation system -- which covers the cost of treatment for workplace injuries and pays workers for lost wages - - might be bone dry in abstract. But implications of what lies ahead are huge.

While employers say its costs are forcing them from the state, labor groups say workers aren't treated adequately by the system. Beyond rate regulation, issues to be addressed include the latitude given to workers in selecting physicians and the method by which employers are determined to be liable for injuries.

Gabriel Sanchez, spokesman for Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, said that "there's no complete agreement on everything" but that Democrats remain "feeling confident we can reach an agreement."

Should compromise legislation emerge, it's possible the Friday deadline for the ballot initiative to be pushed back. But Republican legislative leaders have repeatedly said they want a seven-day period for bill language to be scrutinized -- which could now push a vote easily into next week.