• Phase out the current 5 percent corporate income tax, starting in two years. By 2012, the tax break could cost public education more than $200 million a year, but the governor has said it would bring new jobs to the state.

• Pick among dozens of bills that cost money, from funding another veterans' nursing home to increasing beginning teacher salaries to at least $30,000 a year. Lawmakers don't have enough money to pass them all.

• Decide which legislative task forces — which in-depth reviews — to undertake over the next nine months.

"We are actually ahead" of schedule in many ways, Curtis said.

Senate President John Valentine, R-Orem, said lawmakers are further ahead of schedule at this point in the session than he has seen in 17 years. "Further ahead than in my 25 years," said Senate Budget Chairman Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan.

But so much work remains on bills — and a few remaining budget items — that Curtis doesn't believe lawmakers can end this session before midnight Wednesday, the constitutional adjournment deadline.

"We are moving slowly, but surely," in the House, he added, although that may not be a bad thing. And Curtis, in his first year as speaker and thus overseeing floor debate, doesn't see representatives rushing to make votes the last three days.

"We still have to solve the funding problem for the Salt Palace expansion," added Valentine, who is also in his first session as president of the 29-member Senate.

"And I would like to see us fund STAR," Huntsman's new university research/economic development program. "At least at the $10 million level," Valentine said.

Other important decisions still to be made in some major departments:

Public education

• Officials maintain dim hope public schools will receive more of this year's huge revenue surplus. Much of it has been squirreled away by Republicans in the state's Rainy Day Fund and in transportation funds, including $16 million to prepare youngsters for higher math standards and $6 million to help students struggling to pass the high school graduation test.

• One more bill challenging the federal No Child Left Behind Act remains before the Senate. HB135, sponsored by Rep. Margaret Dayton, R-Orem, would give Utah's testing and school accountability system, U-PASS, priority over NCLB.

The bill has garnered national media coverage — and, education officials say, gotten attention in Washington.

Health-human services