ALBANY - A deal struck by New York leaders Wednesday will automatically revoke the certification of teachers convicted of sex crimes against students, end mandatory overtime for nurses, and make an environmental change that could put solar panels on mall roofs to lower energy costs.

The agreements made in closed-door sessions between legislative leaders and Gov. David Paterson come with just two days left in the scheduled legislative session.

Absent from the list is Paterson's call for a 4-percent cap on the growth in the nation's highest property taxes, or any measure to relieve rising gas prices or head off rising heating fuel prices come winter.

“It is probably unlikely that we can come to agreement in the next few days,” Paterson conceded on his tax cap idea that was never even introduced as a bill.

That prompted Assembly Republican leader James Tedisco of Schenectady to call for everyone to stay in Albany until there was agreement on property tax relief.

Otherwise, he said, the tax cap proposal should be put to a public vote in the fall - when lawmakers are all up for election.

A Siena College poll this week found 74 percent of New Yorkers support Paterson's tax cap.

“Put it on the ballot,” Tedisco challenged the majority leaders of the Senate and Assembly. “Let people vote on it.”

Negotiations will continue at least until the end of the scheduled session on Monday, but no action is expected on any of those measures. Other significant proposals once considered during the six-month session have an uncertain future, including a package of relief for property owners about to lose their homes because of the national subprime mortgage crisis. There's also no agreement on a so-called brownfields measure that would clean up polluted industrial sites enough for commercial re-use and job creation, or long overdue raises for judges that lawmakers have tied to raises for themselves.

Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, a Rensselaer County Republican, said the two most important issues on New Yorkers minds' are property taxes and high gas prices. Neither are on the negotiating table.

Still, Paterson and legislative leaders wouldn't call the session a failure, noting they still had a few days left and the Senate and Assembly are already talking about a special session in July.

The school law will end what is now often a yearlong administrative process to revoke the licenses of teachers and other school employees convicted of sex crimes against students. The cases can now cost a school district $150,000 each even after an employee is convicted or pleaded guilty to a felony.

“At first blush, this move seems to be something that should have been done a long time ago,” said Senate Education Committee Chairman Stephen Saland, a Poughkeepsie Republican who sponsored the bill. But he said it was needed to “end the redundant and costly” process provided by the state Education Department and enforced by the state's teachers' unions.

In late 2006, an Associated Press investigation found cases of 2,570 educators nationwide whose teaching credentials were revoked, denied, surrendered or sanctioned from 2001-2005 following allegations of sexual misconduct. Experts who track sexual abuse say those cases are indicative of a much deeper problem.

The legislative leaders and Paterson also agreed to end mandatory overtime for nurses. That practice can force nurses to work as much as 20 hours of overtime or face discipline by their hospital or the state even if they say the long hours could compromise patient care.

The law will take effect in a year and is hoped to be an enticement to bring thousands of nurses back into the work force. The Public Employees Federation union that sought the bill argued that 30 percent of licenses nurses don't work, many of them because of mandatory overtime.

Nurses can be ordered, during their shift, to work an hour to sometimes 20 hours of overtime, said Shaun Flynn of the New York State Nurses Association. He said in addition to exhausting nurses and disrupting their lives, long hours can hurt patient care.

Flynn said a provision of the deal will allow hospitals to require overtime in emergencies.

Paterson said the state will take a year to determine with hospitals if there are enough nurses to fill shifts and if any other problems arise from the measure. He said there is no plan to increase state spending to hospitals for additional hiring yet.

The environmental measure will allow commercial customers to collect and sell back energy to the power grid, reducing the business's cost and potentially lower everyone's energy bills by creating more supply.

“The vision is that every Wal-Mart, every mall, every building with a flat roof will become `green' because it will cut their energy costs,” said Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group.

The measure will expand a 1997 “net metering” law that is now restricted to residential properties and allows only small amounts of solar, wind and waste-generated power to be sent back to the power grid. The “net” means that a commercial operation could potentially return enough power to pay for its own energy bill, reduce dependence on fossil fuels and lower utility rates.