ALBANY - The New York budget process is behind schedule in a Capitol distracted by sex scandals, with lawmakers unable to agree even on how much they have to spend.

Budget conference committees were supposed to begin a week ago, but they still haven't met. Under the state constitution, lawmakers must reach agreement on a 2008-09 budget by April 1.

“We're hearing they aren't making any great progress,” Assemblyman William Parment, a Jamestown Democrat, said of the legislative leaders and governor. “I'm disappointed they are not because I thought, with the disruption going around us, there would be an effort to close things down and pass it.”

Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer proposed a $124 billion budget that would have increased spending by 4.8 percent while the state faced a growing deficit estimated in February at more than $4.6 billion.

State revenue is declining amid trouble on Wall Street - which generates 20 percent of state revenue - and Gov. David Paterson says New York is likely suffering because of a national recession.

Soon after Paterson replaced the disgraced Spitzer earlier this week, he met with legislators to work on spending cuts.

He said he wanted the spending increase limited to 3.7 percent by cutting $800 million from the proposal.

Paterson said Thursday he doesn't support an Assembly bill that would raise taxes for New Yorkers who make $1 million or more.

“I am in a budget negotiation right now, and if one of the leaders puts it on the table then it's something we will discuss,” Paterson said. “But it is not my intention to come in here and to start raising taxes because, in my opinion, that's what got us into this trouble in the first place.”

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Democrat, has said the new and temporary tax would be a way to fill in gaps in the budget.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno said he would reject any tax increases.

Until lawmakers can agree on how much money is available, not much can happen, but they hadn't accomplished that by this time last year either.

Just because leaders are behind on scheduled budget talks doesn't mean the budget won't come through in time.

Parment said lawmakers hope to avoid the election-year wrath of constituents who pay attention to whether a budget is passed on time, if little else in Albany.

“I do not want to be walking down a Memorial Day parade without a budget,” he said. “People will shout: ‘Why aren't you back in Albany doing a budget?”'

The state budget had been late for 20 straight years until 2005. After a frenzy of last minute negotiations last year, the budget didn't get passed until late morning on April 1, missing the midnight deadline.

There is increasing talk of passing a partial budget to meet the deadline and then passing the balance of the budget in coming months.

Nationally, states are projected to increase spending an average 4.7 percent, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers.

New York has rarely been below the national average.

During the past two decades state spending growth across the U.S. has risen an average of 6.4 percent per year, according to the association.