After huddling in closed-budget caucuses on Wednesday, state senators will spend Thursday drafting and filing amendments to the $40.3 billion budget bill (S 3) that’s scheduled for floor debate starting on Tuesday, May 23. Other than that, lawmakers are winding down their workload for the week on Beacon Hill.

Legislators, who operate under rules designed to prevent scheduling conflicts, crammed 12 committee hearings into Tuesday but have no hearings scheduled Thursday or Friday. Lawmakers rarely hold sessions or hearings on Fridays. Informal House and Senate sessions Thursday at 11 a.m. and the filing of Senate budget amendments by a 5 p.m. deadline will close much of the activity for the week.

Marathon budget sessions are in the forecast for next week. This year’s Senate budget exercise will unfold under an unusually high level of uncertainty since top state budget officials are already acknowledging revenues available to spend next fiscal year may well be marked down after the Senate approves its budget. Doing so would give even more power to a six-member House-Senate budget committee that will work behind closed doors to recommend a consensus budget to Gov. Charlie Baker.

The final House budget (H 3601) relies on new sales tax revenue and revenues from a new assessment on employers to cover state health care costs. The Senate budget bakes in those new revenues and new monies from taxes on short-term rentals. A big question for the Senate is whether they will press for even more new taxes next week, or hold their fire and put all of their tax-raising efforts behind a likely 2018 ballot question which would amend the constitution to impose an income surtax on the highest earners. Such a constitutional amendment could fill state coffers with $2 billion in new revenue annually.