Crisis averted.
With just four and a half hours and two votes to spare, the state Senate on Monday passed Gov. David Paterson’s 11th temporary budget extender needed to keep the state operating.
In doing so, it also approved more than $325 million in mental health and human services cuts set out by Paterson, who last week started inserting components of his full 2010-11 budget into the weekly extenders.
While the Assembly easily passed the plan, the closely divided Senate, where Democrats have a slim 32-seat majority, struggled until the end.
Unlike past extenders, this time three Republicans — Hugh Farley and Roy McDonald of the Capital Region and Charles Fuschillo of Long Island — voted for the spending measure, saying that as much as they disagreed with the governor’s proposals, they couldn’t bring themselves to support a shutdown of state government, even for a day…
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