ALBANY — At 11:30 p. m. Tuesday, a sweet sound for state legislators was heard in a government office building a couple blocks down from the Capitol: the unlocking of a safe containing $7 million in delayed legislative paychecks.

For some lawmakers without outside jobs, who were tapping their credit cards or getting lines of credit to pay the bills, the passage of the final budget bill meant more than finally adopting a fiscal plan totaling about $136 billion.

So, a couple hours after the Senate acted, State Comptroller Thomas P. Di- Napoli authorized the release of the paychecks, which, by law, had been withheld after the state fiscal year began April 1 without a budget.

In all, 14 pay periods were delayed because the budget was 125 days late. That was worth $5.8 million in salaries and another $1.2 million in lulus, or stipends that many lawmakers get for heading committees or holding “leadership” titles.

Gov. David A. Paterson took a victory stroll in a telephone conference call with reporters. He said the final budget limited tax boosts—although Senate Republicans pegged increases at $2.2 billion — and avoided borrowing to close the $9.2 billion deficit.

“We did not want a budget that would go this late,” Paterson said of the fourth-latest budget in state history. But he said, the plan puts “us on the road to recovery.”

With lawmakers gone Wednesday from Albany, fiscal critics came forth. Kenneth Adams, president of the Business Council of New York State, called the spending plan an “anti-recovery budget” that raises taxes and then cuts economic development programs that companies use to create jobs.

“To business owners across the state, this budget’s a confidence-killer,” he said.

Unrelated to the budget, lawmakers could not come to terms on replacing the Power for Jobs program, which reduces electricity bills for hundreds of companies.

Paterson’s plan called for providing more cheap power for businesses that boost employment by slightly reducting the discounts that a relatively few residential customers now receive.

The Assembly, which wants to preserve the discounts, rejected the idea.

In the end, the Senate, which backed Paterson’s plan, was forced to go along with a simple, one-year extender of Power for Jobs instead of a new program.

“This is an absolute failure by the Assembly and another example of its New York City-centric leadership letting down upstate,” said Andrew Rudnick, president of the Buffalo Niagara Partnership.

Most of the complaints over the budget already had been heard; the spending portion of the budget, which included what turned out to be a $1.4 billion cut for schools, had been approved more than a month ago. The revenue measure, the sole remaining bill in the Senate, involved about $1.5 billion in various tax increases.

Wednesday, Paterson chiefly complained that the Legislature went home without adopting a limit on local property tax increases. The Senate passed his plan to restrict growth of school and other local taxes to 4 percent or 120 percent of the inflation rate, whichever is lower, each year. The Assembly rejected the limit.

If the Assembly does not reconsider, Paterson said he likely will call a special session in October — right before the elections — to take up the legislation. But the Assembly could return and simply ignore his bill.

Still, Paterson said, “voters deserve to know where Albany stands on a property tax cap.”

tprecious@buffnews.comnull