It was a bit of an anticlimactic week in the discussion of education funding and policy last week at the Legislature.  There was a bit of a rush getting the last fleet of bills onto the legislative sea in hopes of them reaching port in the omnibus funding and policy bills being assembled.  With the deadline for the omnibus bills to be in the House Ways and Means Committee or the Senate Finance Committee by Tuesday, April 4, it is expected that the content of all of the omnibus funding bills will be posted by today (March 27) on the corresponding committee webpages.  That means that the committees spent much of the past weekend putting together their omnibus bills.

We’re at the point in the 2023 Legislative Session where big things will be happening. With the first policy bill deadline behind us and the second approaching this week, there’s a mad rush to hear as many bills as possible and keep them alive in the discussion. On top of that, the funding bill deadline falls a mere ten days later (April 4) at which point all of the finance bills will have to be out of their committees. That makes it likely that the Senate and House majorities will be setting their budget targets later this week and those targets will provide the parameters for what will be contained in the appropriations bills.

Senate GOP blocks bonding bill, sending DFL back to drawing board

We passed the first milestone in the legislative process for the 2023 legislative session with the first deadline being reached last Friday (March 10).

With the first committee deadline quickly approaching, legislative committees are meeting wall-to-wall trying to get as many bills heard as possible.