Governor Paterson says we shouldn't expect a state budget agreement any time soon, as he has yet to receive budget proposals from either legislative chamber. Our Erin Billups has more.

  To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.

Then come back here and refresh the page.

"We don't have their plans yet, we're running out of time and we really need them," said Governor Paterson.

"It's probably not realistic for us to complete our budget by April 1st," said Senate Finance Committee Vice Chair Liz Krueger.

The Senate and Assembly started negotiating budget resolutions this past weekend and while they recognize more than $9 billion needs to be cut from the state's spending plan, the question is where do they start?

"There's nothing to fight over. Usually when you have a late budget it's because you're fighting over something, but now we just know it's just bad," said Assemblyman Gary Pretlow.

The Governor says lawmakers are procrastinating.

"When they watch what happens to me on TV they're home, like hiding under a pillow, saying 'I don't want to go out there and start talking about how I want to close the budget.' But we're going to need to have that as soon as we can," Paterson said.

Krueger disagrees and says talks are behind mainly because revenue projections keep dropping.

"It is not easy to deal with a moving target where we keep decreasing the amount of revenue we see and we keep increasing the deficit we face," said Krueger.

Republicans, though, say democrats are just making excuses.

"That's a bad answer and that's why Albany is dysfunctional because we have one party rule and they can't seem to move anything forward," said Senate Deputy Minority Leader Tom Libous.

While lawmakers duke it out, the truth remains. The state is set to run out of money, again, by the end of March when $2 billion in payments must be made.

As he did in December, the budget office says the governor is prepared delay payments once more.

But there's another problem looming. If the budget is not enacted by June, the general fund could be in the red by nearly $800 million.