…Those words were just spoken to me by Deputy Senate Majority Leader Jeff Klein, who assured me that a repeat of last week’s extraordinary session, during which the Democrats didn’t have enough members on hand to pass any deals – had there been any, which there weren’t – is not in the cards.

“Everyone is in the vacinity,” the Bronx lawmaker told me, confidently. He was coming from the DSCC’s annual golf fundraiser, which I assume was well-attended, and so he was in a position to know.

“We’re scheduled to go into session at 10 o’clock and we’ll be ready to have 32 Democrats on hand.”

When I asked what said Democrats might be passed, Klein responded: “I can’t tell you that.” But he did say: “Everyone wants to close down the budget and move on.”

(Except, perhaps, Gov. David Paterson. But he doesn’t have a vote on the revenue bill, which is the final piece of the 2010-2011 spending plan. He can, of course, veto it, which would basically kill it dead as the Senate doesn’t have enough votes to override).

What’s most likely to come out of tomorrow’s session, according to a number of legislative sources, is a two-way FMAP contingency deal for which the governor will likely provide a message of necessity.

The US Senate is supposed to be taking up a bill that includes $16.1 billion worth of FMAP funding for the states – including $1.1 billion New York was expecting in the current fiscal year – today, but it is not expected to have sufficient support to pass.

That adds some urgency to the situation in Albany. As several legislative sources explained to me, if there’s no contingency plan for dealing with the loss of FMAP funding, then the budget would have to be re-opened. And given how difficult it has been just to try to get the revenue bill passed, you can imagine what a mess THAT would be.

Last I checked (which was this morning), the contingency plan in the works was going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 to 2 percent cuts across the board. The Senate is concerned about protecting Medicaid (ie: health care interests), while the Assembly is concerned about protecting education funding (ie: the teachers unions).

But everyone thinks they’ll come together for some sort of agreement, which would likely require a message of necessity from Paterson to pass.

As for the SUNY empowerment plan, well, that’s a much more difficult needle to thread.

After Paterson’s re-emptive display last week of blowing up a tentative two-way deal, look for the Senate to make a last-ditch attempt by passing a one-house bill – likely the governor’s plan – to provide at least some cover for Sen. Bill Stachowski to also vote for the revenue bill so he and his colleagues can get paid for the first time since they blew the April 1 deadline.

A frustrated Democratic lawmaker told me today that if and when the Aug. 11 record for the latest budget in modern history is blown then all bets are off. The Legislature doesn’t want to give Paterson the satisfaction of being able to hold that one over lawmakers heads in an election year – particularly when he, as a lame duck, has nothing to lose.

Share|