Caught in a holding pattern
With the possibility of entering a special session, the legislature is still working furiously to get everything done.
Though this legislative session is slated to end on April 26th, given the amount of work still left to be done, chances are that the legislature will be entering a special session*. This means that the legislative session will be extended to allow for more time to finish negotiating the final state budget. Because of the special session, I can’t give you a solid date of ‘here’s when we’ll know what’s going on with the legislature,' but I can say that it’s almost 100% certain that the budget will be hammered out by the time the next economic forecast** comes out in May. If the budget isn’t completed by the time the next economic forecast comes out, then the entire budget that’s already been written will have to have a complete overhaul again to incorporate the new forecast, so it’s in everyone’s best interest to finalize before then.
*A special
session is when the governor calls the legislature together outside of
normal legislative session. They can last no longer than 30 days, and
if more time is needed, another special session will be called. They
can happen at any point in the year, and for any reason from completing
unfinished tasks from the previous session, to addressing emergency
situations.
**Economic forecasting is the process of making predictions about the economy, and happen at both the state and national level. There are official forecasts as well as projected forecasts, and both are used to help in the budget creation process.
Because of all the debate surrounding most of the still-active bills, we don’t yet have a solid idea of what’s going to happen with any legislation that could potentially affect CASA. The bills should be finalized by the official end-of-session date (April 26th), however.
