LAWMAKERS STILL HAVE A LOT ON THEIR PLATES MOST OF THE BUDGETING IS DONE, BUT GROCERY TAX, BUSINESS TAX BREAKS AND HIGHWAY FUNDING HAVE YET TO BE RESO

BYLINE: Gregory Hahn

Get ready for a quick and crazy few weeks at the Idaho Legislature.

Legislative leaders have vowed to vacate the Statehouse by the end of this month, and lawmakers have their eye on March 23 as a good day to wrap it all up.

Legislative budget writers have finished setting most state budgets, and both the House and the Senate are spending long hours on the floor moving bills.

But there is no question these 105 legislators have a lot yet to do.

Let's start with the biggest issues of the session:

--Grocery tax cuts: Gov. Butch Otter had one idea ($22 million targeted at the neediest) and the House passed another ($47.5 million spread to everybody). The Senate has been holding the bill for possible changes for more than a week.

--Business tax breaks: Corporate leaders want to phase in over 10 years a property tax cut that would eventually be worth about $100 million a year. That bill could have seen a House vote Friday, but Republican leaders pushed it off to today, at the earliest. That means negotiations continue.

--Highway funding: Otter wants to spend more than $200 million more on the Connecting Idaho highway project, but that was one of the budgets the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee put off to this week.

But it's not just big issues that need to be resolved. For example:

--Otter and the lawmakers are still discussing whether the state should eliminate the Department of Administration and the Division of Human Resources -- changes that Otter called for in his State of the State speech but which have not been greeted well by lawmakers.

--Legislators are juggling immigration issues, too. Some Republican legislators and Otter want to forbid illegal immigrants from receiving state services, but some senators want to make sure that effort doesn't cause too much inconvenience for Idaho citizens or costs for Idaho agencies.

--The Legislature still hasn't passed any bill to deal with elk-hunting ranches. Though one industry-supported measure has passed the Senate, it has been held up in the House.

--A couple of abortion bills will have to be debated.

However all these issues are resolved, the action should pick up this week.

To offer story ideas or comments, contact reporter Gregory Hahn at ghahn@idahostatesman.com or 377-6425.