Week Four of the 2012 Supplemental Session begins with the passage of the first deadlines of the session.

Tomorrow, January 31 all policy bills that originated in the House must pass out of their respective committees and move to either the floor or an appropriation committee to be considered still active this session. The primary exemption from this being any legislation that is deemed “NTIB” or “Necessary to Implement the Budget”. All Senate policy bills must move from committee by Friday, February 3.

With the deadlines looming in both chambers the higher education policy committees have been full of activity to move bills forward in the process before attention turn towards the appropriation committees and then the Senate and House floors.

This week the focus of the higher education related committees (i.e. House Higher Education and  Senate Higher Education & Workforce Development) will be to move bills forward to the floor or to an appropriation committee.

In the meantime, the appropriations committees (i.e. Senate Ways & Means ,  House Ways & Means, House Education Appropriations) will begin to take up the policy bills referred to committee in order to determine what bills will move forward to the floor by the next deadline – February 7 which marks the date by which bills must move from their respective appropriation committee and to either the Senate or House floor.