The picture’s a little fuzzy, but that’s what it really looked like to me, since I hadn’t had my first cup of coffee yet when I snapped it.

Actually, it’s a good reflection of the last couple of days. There seems to be a real sense among legislators that some part of the tobacco tax will pass, that some improvements will be made to education funding… just no consensus that the Governor’s proposal will pass as written.

One thought conveyed by someone well-credentialed in his knowledge and influence of fiscal policy was that some part of the tobacco tax will pass — maybe 20 cents, maybe a little more. I asked what would be cut from the Governor’s proposed education funding improvements, and he thought that the funds could be found from cutting other discretionary items, other than education.

I’m comfortable with that.

Of course, there are the usual bills we’ve seen before: elected superintendents, forcing a conversion to the TACIR system-level BEP model, requiring this our that instruction, various things about charter schools… I’ll cover those as they come up.

Time to head home now; I’ll cover it more later.