AUGUSTA – Legislators returning to the State House today after their 11-day spring break will find a crowded calendar that includes items ranging from prescription drugs to new snowmobile helmet rules.

And as the House and Senate work their way toward adjournment, schedules will become tighter and issues – such as tax reform, universal health care and filling a $48 million budget gap – will become more contentious.

“I think we’re going to have a busy time of it,” Senate Republican Leader Paul Davis said Sunday. Sessions are scheduled through Thursday this week.

Today’s Senate slate includes a vote on a major item on Gov. John Baldacci’s agenda: proposed Pine Tree Development Zones offering special benefits to new or expanded businesses in targeted areas around the state.

The Senate also is to take up a nonbinding resolution urging Congress to pass legislation modeled after Maine’s prescription-drug law and sponsored by a former state Senate president who is now a freshman 2nd District Rep. Michael Michaud.

The Maine Democrat’s America Rx Act would direct the U.S. health and human services secretary to negotiate lower prices for 65 million Americans who lack adequate prescription drug coverage.

The Maine Rx law, which faces a U.S. Supreme Court challenge by the pharmaceutical industry, calls for similar negotiations on behalf of Mainers without adequate coverage.

Michaud plans a State House news conference with Senate President Beverly Daggett, D-Augusta, and House Speaker Pat Colwell, D-Gardiner, before today’s session to drum up support for the resolution.

The Senate also is scheduled to take a second vote on a bill to require snowmobile operators and riders under 18 years old to wear helmets while on trails maintained with Snowmobile Trail Funds.

The bill surfaces after a record 15 snowmobile deaths in Maine this past season. It is a trimmed-down version of an earlier bill that called for more restrictions on all-terrain vehicle and snowmobile use.

One of dozens of bills on the House calendar seeks to make custodial parents of young offenders take more responsibility for their children’s behavior. The proposal would allow the courts to order parents to make restitution to victims of a juvenile’s offense.

Another bill, which is likely to stir House debate, seeks to increase juror compensation to 32 cents per mile and $40 per day beginning July 1, 2005.

Lawmakers will routinely kill dozens of bills that are being cleared away as they begin to focus on the session’s bigger issues.

Still ahead in the closing weeks will be tax reform, Baldacci’s plan for a universal health insurance system, and balancing the $5.3 billion two-year state budget.

The administration is expected to unveil soon its plan to ensure that every Mainer who lacks health insurance has coverage. Passage of such a plan would fulfill a campaign promise Baldacci made last year.

The Taxation Committee has been working overtime – even meeting during the week-and-a-half Easter break – to refine a package to restructure Maine’s tax laws. Maine’s volatile state revenues and soaring property taxes have been two major concerns.

“I think that’s going to be quite a contentious issue,” said Davis, of Sangerville, who sees a possibility of the reform matter being taken up at a special session.

And while lawmakers have already approved a biennial budget for fiscal 2004-05, a shortfall of $48 million is looming and must be addressed before July 1.