We’ve passed the halfway point of the 2009 session. The early part of next week will be filled with floor action in advance of the March 12 cutoff for bills to clear their house of origin. As a result, the published hearing schedule is light, with only the House Higher Education committee scheduled to meet at 8am Thursday to consider bills that have come over from the Senate. A few more hearings may be added, but the big push to consider bills from the opposite house will come the following week.
The next piece of the budget puzzle will come into focus today when the caseload forecast council meets to revise estimates of the demand for state services (school enrollments, corrections, health care). Joe Turner at The News Tribune has a good blog entry that tries to put together all of the moving pieces into a bottom line number.