April Fools’ Day is celebrated in many countries on April 1 every year. Though it is not a national holiday, April Fools’ Day is recognized and celebrated as a day when people play practical jokes and hoaxes on each other. Last week’s action at the Statehouse was no April Fools’ prank, but Idahoans might consider the action by some members of the Senate foolish.
Early last week legislative leadership signaled they had created a path that could allow lawmakers to complete their work and adjourn sine die by the end of the week. But that plan fell apart on Thursday morning when the Idaho Senate defeated the FY ’14 Public Schools budget by one vote.
Lawmakers made their way back to Boise on Monday afternoon and by the end of the day it appeared that some effort to break the log jam resulting from last week’s defeat of public schools budget may have been made.
Because it is a privileged committee (meaning it has the authority to print new legislation in the waning days of the session), the House Education Committee is presumably the committee that will introduce any new bill that would allow the members of the Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee (JFAC) to rewrite an education funding bill.
House Education Committee chair Reed DeMordaunt (R-Eagle) announced late Monday afternoon that the House Education Committee would meet at 10 AM on Tuesday morning.
Here’s an interesting note: It costs Idaho taxpayers $30,000 every day that the legislature is in session. That’s no April Fools’ joke!
Let’s hope legislators can quickly complete their work. We can all think of better ways to spend tax dollars.
