ALBANY - The stimulus package aimed at reviving the national economy will send $12.65 billion in extra Medicaid funding to New York over two years, while creating or saving as many as 215,000 jobs in the state, according to federal officials.

New York will also get billions of dollars for education, infrastructure projects and college tuition tax breaks, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer said. He said the final version of the legislation is expected to go to debate and a final vote by lawmakers in Washington on Thursday night or Friday.

“This is certainly going to alleviate a lot of the problems the counties and the state have but not eliminate them,” Schumer said. “There still will be difficult choices.”

Gov. David Paterson said the money will help ease New York's fiscal crisis, but he won't let the federal windfall totally reverse painful spending cuts he wants in education, health care and most other areas of state operations. The stimulus package is spread over 27 months.

“There will be some pain, which we will try to distribute evenly and share across the state,” Paterson said Thursday evening in a conference call with Schumer.

The governor said the federal dollars may eliminate for one year cuts to education spending, but the deficit calculations represent “a fluid situation.”

“But what we do not want to use the federal stimulus for is to replace real and recurring deficit reduction because then, three years from now, we will be right in the same mess and with no stimulus package to help us,” Paterson said earlier Thursday after a town hall meeting at Morrisville State College.

He said there are 1,900 “shovel ready” construction projects that could be started within weeks using federal money.

Even if New York's whole share was applied to the state budget, he said it won't cover the deficit now estimated at more than $14 billion for the 2009-10 fiscal year, which begins April 1.

The governor told a packed college theater that Albany needs to start “honest budgeting.”

“Using the stimulus as a one-shot won't,” he said.

Construction projects throughout New York from highways and bridges to transit systems and firehouse renovations are now being sorted out for funding under the federal stimulus package.

Schumer said the stimulus package approved by Congress Wednesday will create jobs, provide money for schools threatened in a fiscal crisis, and relieve state and local budgets and tax strains.

Paterson has created a stimulus cabinet to help match project proposals to federal criteria as well as to help county and municipal governments get their projects approved. The shovel-ready projects are already identified statewide.

But some state lawmakers are already concerned they may not have enough say in how the money is spent. State lawmakers are expected to press the Paterson administration to make sure they have a powerful role in choosing where the stimulus aid is spent, with an eye to bringing the economic infusion back to their districts. Most state funding requires the Legislature's approval, but lawmakers say federal “pass-through” funding could avoid that.

The Paterson administration in interviews this week said the Legislature will be part of the process in selecting projects, but didn't detail what that role would be.

President Barack Obama is expected to sign the stimulus bill within days. State officials have said the first funding could start to reach New York within days to get some projects - and the construction and related jobs they will create - under way. State officials have estimated every billion dollars of stimulus could create tens of thousands of jobs.

Figures released this week show unemployment claims in New York have doubled to a weekly average of about 25,000 from 12,000 to 13,000 a year ago. There are now more than 420,000 New Yorkers receiving benefits. That's up 175,000 from last year's average.

This week Paterson and the Legislature agreed to draw down $2 billion more in federal unemployment insurance funds to cover the claims.