Let's Make a Deal. It's a few minutes before 1 AM on Sunday, May 18, meaning the Legislature has 23 hours to finish its work before it goes home. It appears that a deal has been reached on HF 1812, the budget conference committee. The tax conference committee continues in its mission to finish. These bills are inextricably linked. We will leave here later today with either both these bills or neither of these bills. At this point, it is expected that accord will be reached on both of them.

It is unclear where the funding for E-12 will be in the end. HF 6, the bill that contained the appropriations for E-12 along with a few policy initiatives, was vetoed yesterday. It would be my guess that rather than have a veto override attempted, that the negotiating parties would believe it more prudent to slide those appropriations into HF 1812 rather than leave the session on a sour note of either an overridden or sustained veto. But, if I've learned anything this session, nothing quite conforms to conventional wisdom this year and I'm not going to crawl out on any further on the limb to venture a guess.

So, hopefully, I'll have a report in a couple of hours that will be able to more accurately outline the end game.