After 77 days of stalled negotiations, legislative leaders said Wednesday they were close to finalizing a state budget and should have a fiscal plan nailed down soon. Maybe a week. Maybe a few days.

But they’ve made almost no progress in addressing the biggest problem the budget needs to fix: closing the state’s $9.2 billion budget gap.

Lawmakers so far have cut about $1.2 billion in state spending for the 2010-11 fiscal year. They’ve come to an agreement on about 50 percent of the budget.

That means they still have to cut $8 billion, and they have only half the budget left from which to trim.

“The only alternative that the people of the state are facing, and which we would strongly oppose, is an increase in taxes and fees,” Senate Minority Leader Dean Skelos said Wednesday during a leaders meeting.

“The Democrats are running out of options,” Senate GOP spokesman Scott Reif said.

Most key areas of spending already have been decided: health care, Medicaid, welfare and mental health. Gov. David Paterson hopes to send bills dealing with public protection, government operations, transportation and economic development to the Legislature this week. If approved by lawmakers, those would cut another $100 million from the budget, Paterson spokesman Erik Kriss said.

That leaves education as the only big sector where significant cuts are likely to be made…

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