April began quietly at the Statehouse.

Almost ghost-town quiet.

The House and the Senate won’t convene until 1:30 p.m. — the better to allow out-of-town legislators to spend the Easter weekend at home.

No committee meetings are scheduled today. And that includes the three committees we’re all watching in this K-12 budget impasse: the House and Senate education committees, and the budget-writing Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee.

Keep an eye on Idaho Education News. We’ll give you the latest on the budget battle as we learn it.

Meanwhile, for your reading and viewing pleasure:

• Here’s a good overview piece from John Miller of the Associated Press on a budget deal gone sour. In it, JFAC co-chairman Dean Cameron says a new deal must protect the component parts of the original: money for merit pay and technology pilot programs, and money to “unfreeze” the teacher salary grid. “If you start pulling pieces out of it,” Cameron said, “you’re going to unravel the grand bargain.”
• On this week’s “Idaho Reports,” two Boise state senators, Republican Chuck Winder and Democrat Branden Durst, break down the vote. Interestingly, Durst talks about his own second thoughts about the budget — and whether he’s support a similar budget the second time around. In the pundits section, I join host Greg Hahn, Betsy Russell of the Spokane Spokesman-Review and Jim Weatherby to try to sort out what happens next.