Legislative leaders are hoping for a 75-day Idaho legislative session in 2014, setting the target date for adjournment sine die at March 21. “I know there’s some of the audience that are probably laughing inside that we really think we can get done by the 21^st, but we’re serious,” said Senate President Pro-Tem Brent Hill, R-Rexburg. “We’d really like to make that the target and shoot for that.”

House Speaker Scott Bedke, R-Oakley, said he hopes that since a joint interim committee met during the interim on education, the education budget could be taken up “earlier in the budgeting process … so there is not that last-minute scramble to do the education budget.” He said he was sending a message to all sides: “I would urge them to get their differences ironed out earlier in the session, earlier in the budget process, rather than later.”

Last year, the House-passed public school budget was rejected by the Senate on March 27, extending the legislative session, which ended up running 88 days, wrapping up on April 4. The 2012 session ran 81 days; the 2011 session, 88 days.