Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Legislative break over, time to get back to work

Good morning. Lawmakers return to St. Paul today after a brief spring break for a noon floor session in both the Senate and House. As reported in last week's weekly update, the higher education omnibus appropriation bill in both the Senate and House will be moving quickly this week.

The Senate Higher Education committee released their bill last week, but did not take any action on the bill. Committee members are expected to pass it out of committee today at 12:30 p.m. where it will then head to the Senate Finance Committee Thursday.

The House Higher Education and Workforce Development Finance and Policy Division is scheduled to release their bill this afternoon at 1:00. Committee members will walk through the bill and amendments will be taken later this evening at 7:00. If necessary, they will meet tomorrow afternoon to finish amendments, and the plan is to pass the bill out of committee Thursday. The House Finance committee is expected to take the bill up Friday. Stay tuned as we learn more.

The capital investment conference committee is also expected to meet this afternoon at 2:45 to start working through the differences in the two bills. As a reminder, the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system is in the Senate bill for $90 million and the House bill for $67.9 million in HEAPR and projects.

At the Capitol:

Legislative schedules are available for the House and Senate.

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