Next Two Weeks Important For Successful Bills

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(STATEHOUSE) - Legislators have been meeting and voting for three-and-a-half months.

For most bills, all that matters is the next two weeks. "The session is just now starting," declares Senate Appropriations Chairman Bob Meeks (R-Lagrange).

Monday marks the start of conference committees, where one Democrat and one Republican from each chamber meet to hammer out final compromises on bills which passed the House and Senate in different forms.

The one deal which has to get done is the budget. House Speaker Patrick Bauer says that discussion will revolve around the same issue it always does: school funding.

The Republican Senate proposed yearly school funding increases about half-a-percent lower than the Democratic House did. There are also disagreements on charter-school funding, and on how to institute full-day kindergarten.

Meeks notes the Senate budget leaves the state with one-point-two-billion dollars in reserve, and says some of that could be used to narrow the gaps--but not a lot.

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