ALBANY - With the state budget already four days late, Gov. David A. Paterson ordered lawmakers Friday to remain here until a spending plan was adopted.

But the mandate was promptly ignored by many lawmakers who headed home in the early evening “subject to the call” of their respective legislative leaders to return to the Capitol. Staffs for the Senate, Assembly and Paterson were expected to continue hammering out details of the 2008-09 budget through the weekend, however.

Lawmakers so far have adopted spending bills for law enforcement, economic development, transportation, environment, health care and aid to municipalities. Still outstanding are bills on higher education, school aid, building projects, human services and labor, among others.

"I felt compelled to make sure that this process continues to go on," Paterson told reporters. "I have requested of the legislative leaders that members of the legislature stay here until this budget is passed. If it means staying the weekend, that's what we'll do."

Lawmakers adopted a different stance, saying the budget was more likely to be passed early next week. "In spirit we're here," said Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg before leaving for home. "It makes no sense for us to stay to wait around while bills are printed."

Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno said his 32-member conference would remain in Albany Saturday and Sunday. But he offered no predictions regarding what, if any, bills would be taken up by the Senate over the weekend.

"We just seem to be spinning our wheels, going around and around, talking about the same things and not getting conclusions," Bruno added.

He and the other leaders remained mum about the major hurdles to budget passage, though Paterson said lawmakers hadn't yet come to terms with the weakening economy. Bruno. “If we don't reconcile what we're discussing, we're going to be here for a while. And I'm afraid that it's going to be a long while.”

Dan Weiller, spokesman for Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, said members were told to “return to session this weekend at the call of the speaker, as bills become ready to be voted on.”

The Assembly adjourned at 3:55 p.m. They were told they would get four hours to respond to call to return.

Before the Assembly adjourned, Republican Assemblyman James Hayes of Williamsville picked up on Paterson's whip comment. He asked in a floor debate on the budget that if the governor is cracking the whip on this horse, when will the horse cross the finish line?

“The horse has moved forward,” said Assembly Finance Committee Chairman Herman Farrell, a Manhattan Democrat. “So I would say we are in pretty good shape for this weekend and I believe we ought to have a budget by the end of the weekend.”

But with legislative staffers going two to three days without decent sleep and the toughest budget issues ahead, there would have to be breakthroughs to complete the 2008-09 budget by Sunday night.

The issues yet to be agreed upon include school aid, higher education funding, and the taxes and other revenues to be used to pay for the $124 billion budget.

Paterson was specifically critical of the revenue debate, saying lawmakers were making “revenue estimates that are incomplete or hollow” that will deepen a projected deficit for the next fiscal year. That 2009-10 deficit is already estimated at $3.6 billion because of declining revenues and an economy that Paterson said is suffering in a national recession.

“The result is we have people moving out of state,” Paterson said.

Paterson also criticized the Legislature for conducting secret meetings - even excluding elected lawmakers in the minority conference - to create a budget that spends too much in tough fiscal times.

He referred to this past week when the Democrat-controlled Assembly and the Republican-controlled Senate abandoned public conference committees to negotiate each area of the budget. In those meetings, rank-and-file lawmakers of both parties in both chambers meet to decide how to spend total amounts set by their leaders and the governor.

After that, the process that is part of a budget reform law passed a year ago leads to general conference committees, or the “mother ship.” There, the senior lawmakers can question each area in public then accept or reject each subcommittee report.

Instead, this week Bruno and Silver have met privately and by telephone. Their staffs worked through most nights with the governor's budget crafters. There were no public reports of agreements until bills were printed and rushed to votes.

In one health conference committee, lawmakers whispered among themselves away from the microphones then announced there was too much disagreement to meet publicly.

Paterson was part of the closed-door meetings that set the “framework” of a state budget. After one such meeting on March 27, he announced only the total for spending and its growth over the last budget. He also promised the budget process would be open and public after that.

“We have a conceptual agreement, subject to the approval of the conference committees,” Paterson said that night. “That's their role. They work out (spending) at the conference committees.”

“You'll see it unveiled at the conference committees,” Silver said that night.

That didn't happen.

“It has fallen apart,” said Senate Democratic leader Malcolm Smith of Queens. He said lawmakers are getting spending bills to act on immediately, before they get the bills that spell out how the funds would be spent, then get supplemental bills correcting errors in both.

“It's unfair for a legislator to have to sit there and digest this in minutes and come back and vote on it,” Smith said. “The process is broken right now. And it needs a lot of fixing.”

“This is certainly a throwback to the old days,” said Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group, referring to Albany's historic backdoor dealing.

“It's going to take public pressure to break the logjam,” he said. “I don't know how the public can put pressure on the Legislature as long as it's done in private.”

AP-ES-04-04-08 1828EDT