ALBANY — Senate Democrats have embraced their own plan to balance the state budget, accepting Gov. David A. Paterson's proposal to cut funding for schools and health care, while rejecting several big tax increases and bringing back an annual property tax rebate check for homeowners.

The $136.2 billion Senate Democratic plan — which passed 32-29 along party lines late Monday afternoon — legalizes the sale of marijuana

for medical purposes, steps up collection of taxes on cigarettes by Indian retailers, turns

back Paterson's plans to close a number of state parks, and would let the University at

Buffalo set its own tuition at levels different than other campuses.

The proposal does not embrace a huge borrowing spree recently proposed by Lt. Gov. Richard

Ravitch, though it does include $700 million from refinancing bonds the state already used as

a one-shot fiscal maneuver from a big 1998 settlement with the tobacco industry. Senate

Democrats also made clear they were open to more borrowing plans.

The plan is merely a peek at some of the Senate Democrats' cards at where the conference,

which rules the Senate by the narrowest of margins, might be willing to take the 2010 budget.

"This is just a first step," said Senate Democratic Conference Leader John L. Sampson of Brooklyn.

Republicans slammed the blueprint as fiscally irresponsible, filled with gimmicks and

temporary one-shot maneuvers that is $1.5 billion in the red and ignores the brewing fiscal

problems already projected over the next several years.

"It's going to blow out the deficit in the years to come," warned Senate Minority Leader

Dean G. Skelos, a Nassau County Republican.

The significance of the Senate Democratic plan is acknowledgment of the seriousness of the

state's fiscal crisis. By accepting a plan by Paterson to cut state aid to schools by $1.4

billion, the Senate Democrats sent signals to various sides — from budget negotiators in

the Assembly to teachers unions and school districts — of a willingness to back

Paterson's controversial education cut proposal.

The governor's office did not have an immediate comment.

The Senate Democratic plan:

Rejects several Paterson's tax increases, including a $1 per pack cigarette hike and

new levies on sugar-based beverages, such as soda, which together would raise nearly $700

million.

Turns back $254 million in revenues by stopping Paterson's proposal to permit wine

sales in grocery stores.

Envisions $15 million in new revenues by permitting, based on a California model,

the sale of marijuana in private dispensing facilities for certain medical ailments, including

chronic pain.

Restores a property tax rebate check program that ended last year with the state's

fiscal crisis, but fails to include a plan advanced recently by Senate Democrats to cap local

property tax hikes.

The overall budget would rise, under the Senate Democratic plan, from $133 billion in 2009

to $136.2 billion. Senate officials blamed a sizable portion of the increase on carrying over

red ink from the 2009 fiscal year, which ends March 31, into the next year.

The Democratic plan comes with lawmakers set to go on a vacation after this Friday. The

number of officials at the Capitol who are counting on a 2010 budget being adopted before the

break — and therefore making it a timely budget to be in place on April 1 — can be

counted on less than one hand.

While non-binding and only in the form of a resolution and not an actually piece of

legislation, senators said their plan can now be used with whatever the Assembly Democrats

might propose this week in conference committee discussions in the days ahead. Conference

committees generally leave the major decisions, on such things as tax increases, to private

talks between the governor and legislative leaders.

Moreover, much is missing from the 51-page Senate resolution. For instance, Senate

Democrats did not provide any breakdown of district-by-district allotments for state aid for

schools.

David Albert, a spokesman for the New York State School Boards Association, said the Senate

plan does include a number of offsetting plans to the $1.4 billion in school cuts, such as

elimination of new mandates imposed on districts by Albany without ways to pay for them and a

new ability to tap into reserve funds that total about $600 million statewide.

"There are things that would save money, but all told, districts are going to take a hit,"

he said.

Unshackle Upstate, a business-led group, meanwhile, praised the Senate Democratic plan for

dropping some of Paterson's tax hike proposals. But Brian Sampson, executive director of the

group, called the year-to-year spending increase "shameful" given the state's sour economy.

"Anything less than a reduction in spending will not be tolerated," he said.