PROVIDENCE — As this year’s legislative session barrels toward its end, activity at the State House has officially reached a fever pitch.

Lawmakers aim to wrap up a week from Friday. Between now and then, they say they plan to address major policy issues such as immigration, education financing and revising the state fire code. Bills on other issues, such as same-sex marriage and abortion laws, are presumed dead. A third list — prison policy, separation of powers, and gambling at Newport Grand — is in limbo, with lawmakers declining to say anything definitive about their intentions.

Two measures that have historically passed the House but gotten hung up in the Senate — prohibiting forced overtime for nurses and criminalizing human trafficking — are geared to pass the Senate this year.

A bill to move up Rhode Island’s presidential primary has passed the Senate; House leaders say they are still evaluating it.

Lawmakers hope to pass a comprehensive bill on the state’s drinking-water supply, but that will require wading through a 100-page bill that has not yet been posted for a hearing in committee. They want to help homeowners in coastal areas who have had their insurance policies canceled, or are in danger of cancellation, with two bills that were heard in committee last night, but may not make it to the House floor until next week.

They intend to override Governor Carcieri’s veto of a bill on medical marijuana, but that vote has not yet been posted either.

On at least one big issue — revising the state fire code in response to complaints about the expense of implementing the changes made after the deadly Station nightclub fire in 2003 — a bill has yet to be introduced. Rep. Peter T. Ginaitt, D-Warwick, plans to introduce it this week.

Here’s what else to expect in the session’s waning days:

CORRECTIONS

Ambitions were high at the beginning of the session, with leaders in all branches of state government calling to revise the state’s criminal laws and policies to help stem rising prison costs. Members of a working group on the issue acknowledged last week that they’ve given up on their goal of reducing the number of state prison inmates by 500, but advocates continue to push the issue — it was the subject of a rally in the State House rotunda yesterday.

A bill that aims to decrease the number of inmates jailed solely because they don’t have enough money to pay their court fines is headed for the Senate floor. The demonstrators said they are hopeful for action on other corrections-related bills, and frustrated that it hasn’t happened yet.

“I feel like we did the homework for them and handed them something on a silver platter that accomplishes what they’ve said they want to do,” said Direct Action for Rights and Equality’s Mimi Budnick, one of the organizers of yesterday’s rally.

Late yesterday, a Senate committee posted notice that it will vote tomorrow on a bill to do away with minimum sentences on drug charges. The bill’s backers say it would give judges more discretion to get drug addicts into treatment instead of prison.

A third measure, to strip the state’s ability to imprison a person on a probation violation if he is not convicted of the criminal charge that constituted the violation, has stalled in a House committee, even though House Speaker William J. Murphy, an attorney with a private practice in criminal law, says he supports the idea.

Murphy said he has had little time to focus on bills, with floor debate on a controversial state budget scheduled for this Friday.

Regardless of what happens this session, Murphy said he hopes the prison-policy working group will continue to meet “and hopefully get something done early next session.”

NEWPORT GRAND

One of the major question marks remaining is whether lawmakers will act on a proposal to extend the state’s contract with Newport Grand, locking in the gambling facility’s tax rates for an additional five years. The same bill includes language designed to resolve a court dispute between the facility and the city, but some fear the wording goes too far and erodes local control.

The bill, introduced by Rep. Henry C. Rose, D-East Providence, has not yet been posted for a hearing. Speaker Murphy said he plans to meet today to discuss the bill with J. Russell Jackson and Paul W. Crowley, two lawmakers who represent Newport districts.

EDUCATION FUNDING

A legislative commission that has spent two years studying state aid to local school districts plans to present its product today, take a vote, and send the bill to the full House and Senate.

Last year, state aid covered 38 percent of local education costs; the commission is calling for the state to increase its share to 44 percent. That and other changes would eventually require the state to chip in an additional $600 million a year.

The discussion takes place against the backdrop of a House budget proposal that would level-fund school districts, giving them the same amount of state aid next year as they got this year. Lawmakers warned districts to plan for the worst, but that didn’t prevent many from basing their budgets on assumed increases in state aid.

State Sen. Hanna M. Gallo, one of the study commission’s chairwomen, acknowledged yesterday that it may be difficult to pass such a significant bill at such a late date. But she said it’s imperative that lawmakers ensconce a reliable formula in law. Districts “need to know what they can plan on, even if it’s not as much as they want,” Gallo said.

IMMIGRATION

The House leadership is planning to act on a proposal by Rep. Jon D. Brien, D-Woonsocket, to require private employers to verify employees’ eligibility to work — i.e., citizenship or legal immigration status — using a federal database.

Brien said yesterday he expects the bill to face “a tough road in the Senate,” but said the Senate should pass it because state residents support it. “We have to prove to the public that we’re listening to them,” he said.

SEPARATION OF POWERS

Lawmakers’ proposals to reconfigure the Coastal Resources Management Council, the Narragansett Bay Commission and the I-195 Redevelopment Board have drawn protests from the governor and the watchdog group Common Cause of Rhode Island. Now, Speaker Murphy is indicating the General Assembly may punt the issue to next year.

Carcieri and Common Cause have decried the legislature because it hasn’t yet finished implementing the constitutional amendment voters approved in 2004. But Murphy said yesterday the task is too important to rush. “We changed years of history within one year,” he said. “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

egudrais@projo.com