AWSP Blog

It was budget week in the Legislature as both House and Senate Democrats released their supplemental operating budgets. Both budget bills had hearings within hours of their release on Monday, and both were amended within days of these hearings. Budget negotiators from both chambers will now seek to reconcile differences and come to a final budget before “sine die” (the last day of the session), scheduled for March 10.

The legislative clock continues to count down. The Senate is dealing with 85 bills while the House has 65 on their calendar for possible action. March 4th is the last day to consider opposite house bills. Both chambers then retreat into cloaked meetings to negotiate bills differences. While these negotiations are going on, any upcoming committee agendas will generally be scheduled work sessions to set direction for the interim and next session. That’s assuming they meet.

It was budget week in the Legislature as both House and Senate Democrats released their supplemental operating budgets. Both budget bills had hearings within hours of their release on Monday, and both were amended within days of these hearings. Budget negotiators from both chambers will now seek to reconcile differences and come to a final budget before “sine die” (the last day of the session), scheduled for March 10.

As the clock continues to count down to Sine Die, there is a mixture of committee hearings, behind the scenes meetings, and limited floor debate. As mentioned earlier, Feb. 24th is the last day for policy bills to clear committees, and Feb. 28th for fiscal bills to clear. Many committee agendas read “Bills to be determined” as decisions are being made behind closed doors as to what advances. All these actions lead to the March 4th date, which is the last day (5 PM) to act on opposite house bills.

I’d like to start this blog by sharing three things with you - one you know for sure, and two you probably didn’t. First, it’s Black History Month. You should all know that already. The second thing? To keep my sanity as an educational leader for the last 25 years, I have been an active runner. How those two pieces are connected leads me to the third. My perspective of running was forever changed shortly after 1:00 pm on February 23, 2020, outside the small town of Brunswick, Georgia.