Like test-takers who save the hard questions for the end, legislators have left a lot of the tough stuff for what may be their last week on the job.

After they approve a $20 billion state budget, which could happen today in a rare Saturday session, lawmakers will be staring at a stack of proposals on crime, schools, health and the environment.

It's a lot to discuss in five days. Legislative leaders say the session will end Thursday.

Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand of Fayetteville was confident legislators can do all they need to. "Virginia does their entire session in 60 days," he said.

North Carolina's legislature has been meeting for six months. Republicans, who are in the minority in both the House and Senate, complain that Democrats have done more thumb-twiddling than working during that time.

Despite talk of helping curb illegal immigration, House Democrats didn't do anything to back up their words, said Rep. Paul "Skip" Stam, the House minority leader from Apex.

And they stopped proposals that might have helped lift the de facto moratorium on executions, Stam said. He also cited a major statewide bond issue that various groups sought, unsuccessfully, to pay for infrastructure such as schools and roads. Republicans, Stam noted, proposed a way to do it without raising taxes.

But Rep. Hugh Holliman, the Democratic majority leader in the House, said Democrats will be able to look back on the session and be happy with their accomplishments.

Holliman returned Friday from a ceremony where Gov. Mike Easley signed into law a bill requiring that private health insurance polices cover nine mental illnesses the same way they do physical ailments.

Holliman called the law a "landmark," and is looking forward in these last few days to final votes on another health insurance proposal -- to provide insurance coverage to some people with serious illnesses who cannot afford private health insurance or have been denied private insurance.

Creating the insurance pool is a top priority for leaders of both chambers, but there's major disagreement over how to pay.

The House wants to assess individual insurance policies, while the Senate wants to repeal a tax credit for small business and use that money to help pay for the insurance.

Holliman, who worked for years to get the tax credit passed, doesn't like the Senate's doing away with it.

Legislators approved a permanent ban on waste ponds at new hog farms this week, but final decisions have yet to be made on proposals dealing with nuclear power plants, renewable energy and garbage.

The Senate passed a bill Friday to overhaul the state's landfill regulations, days before a one-year ban on new landfill permits is about to expire. The state put a hold on permits last year because lawmakers were worried that privately owned regional landfills proposed in rural counties could make the state one of the nation's top importers of garbage.

The bill approved Friday would add a statewide surcharge on garbage and restrict locations of new landfills.

"Obviously, we love that one," said Senate leader Marc Basnight, a Manteo Democrat.

House leaders aren't so sure. The House is considering a different bill that extends the moratorium on new permits but gets rid of the proposal for statewide fees.

In a few years, fewer 4-year-olds will be able to start public kindergarten under a law legislators passed earlier this year. But lawmakers are still trying to decide whether to pass a law to combat school bullying.

The House passed the bill in May, and it sits in a Senate committee.

The bill was controversial in the House because it includes gay students as likely bullying targets. But Sen. Fletcher Hartsell, a Cabarrus Republican whose committee is in charge of the proposal, said he hasn't decided whether the measure would move further this year.

Fletcher, a former school board attorney, said he advised against writing a lot of policies. The fewer, the better, he said.

The last piece of legislation lawmakers take up could well be a major change in the state's new ethics law, to require that hearings into ethics complaints be open to the public. The legislation was introduced only this week and still must get out of a Senate committee, through the Senate and then the House.

It's a lot to talk about in five days.

(Staff writer Dan Kane contributed to this report.)