Senate told state budget introduction likely delayed one week

Senator Bridges announced during Friday’s floor session that the legislature should expect a roughly one-week delay in the budget introduction.

Bridges, speaking from the floor, said staff, committee chairs and drafters had been told the budget would be delayed by a week and advised senators to plan for an introduction not the coming Monday but the following Monday (she indicated March 31 as the anticipated introduction date). "At this point, it looks like, almost certainly the budget will be delayed by 1 week," she said. She added that the shift would move what had been planned as the Senate's budget week to the House, and vice versa — "the house week, what had been planned is the budget week in the house will now be the budget week in the senate. The budget week in the house will be the following week."

Bridges framed the change as provisional and contingent on further developments: "That is assuming everything goes to plan from here, which, yeah. Who knows? But that's the plan." There was no formal motion or vote recorded on the floor about the schedule; the announcement was informational.

Senators resumed regular business after the announcement; no formal scheduling order was changed in the session record during that floor time.