Gov. David Paterson deserves mixed reviews for his decisions last week concerning the budget crisis the state now faces.

The governor, after meeting with legislative leaders, announced that he's calling for a Nov. 18 special session of the Legislature to work on closing the $1.2 billion budget shortfall in the current fiscal year. He also said that he plans to deliver his proposed executive budget for the next fiscal year by Dec. 16, a month ahead of the constitutional deadline for that starting point in the budget process.

How can the budget crisis be important enough for Paterson to get his 2009-2010 budget proposal to the Legislature so early, but not important enough to bring legislators back to Albany before the second half of November?

Getting the executive budget completed by mid-December is a brilliant idea, one that frankly should have been put in place long before this current debacle.

Given the state's terrible track record at getting budgets done in a timely, orderly manner, it makes complete sense for the governor to get things going as early as possible.

The special session of the Legislature, however, is another matter. Since this announcement came at meeting with legislative leaders, it's pretty clear that the Nov. 18 date was mutually agreeable to the legislators.

We've already outlined the reasons why legislators, despite the rigors of an election season, should be working on this issue right now in Albany.

But we're also realistic with our expectations of this Legislature and the ability to come to a consensus on spending cuts in the middle of a campaign, so perhaps waiting until after Election Day, Nov. 4, is understandable.

But there can't be any reasonable excuse for waiting a full two weeks after the election to come back to Albany to do the work that elected officials are paid to do.

We hope Paterson and the Legislature rethink this planned session and move it up to Nov. 5.