As State’s Budget Deadline Nears, Leaders Still Far Apart on Many Details

By Nicholas Confessore and Danny Hakim

ALBANY — With just days before Tuesday’s budget deadline, state leaders were still divided on Friday about how to structure an increase in taxes on the wealthy, with Senate Democrats pushing a broad overhaul of the state’s existing tax structure and Assembly Democrats preferring a more limited approach, according to officials involved in the discussions.

The leaders were also discussing a proposal to restore $328 million in annual financing provided to New York City that Gov. David A. Paterson had proposed to suspend, while freezing such aid to other localities around the state. And after nearing death this week, an expansion of recycling laws to include water bottles appears to be back on the table, prompting executives at Coca-Cola — bottlers of Dasani brand water — to threaten shutting down their distribution centers in Buffalo and New York City.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/nyregion/28budget.html