AUGUSTA (AP) – Budget bargainers spent hours Saturday consulting among themselves and with Gov. John Baldacci administration officials and then sat down in public session to discuss tax collections and how hiring more examiners and auditors might bring in more revenue.

Additional revenue is a prime concern for lawmakers confronting a $128 million Medicaid shortfall and Baldacci’s plan to come up with $32 million more to fund emergency needs and balance state spending for the fiscal year that begins on July 1.

But wary of increasing the state government work force, Appropriations Committee members have also been reviewing elements of the governor’s package that would add positions for Maine Revenue Services and other departments, including a Corrections Department beset by the demands created by a high prison population.

While it remained unclear how far Democrats and Republicans had progressed in their private talks, the public debate was slow as new questions proliferated. The committee’s expressed hope of wrapping up its work by the end of the day faded.

For the time being, however, it seemed that the two sides had not given up on reaching a bipartisan compromise. The committee was scheduled to reconvene Sunday afternoon.

Central to any accord would be how to come to grips with Baldacci’s proposal and alternatives to it for curbing Medicaid expenditures. Details of proposed alternatives circulated privately Saturday with a staff analysis still at least a day away.

Baldacci, monitoring the State House deliberations and dispatching top aides and advisers to confer with the lawmakers, said negotiations were lively.

“As always, people are talking. … There’s a lot of number-crunching,” he said.

“There’s a recognition that we have to change the structure, the management of the MaineCare program,” he said, adding there was mutual interest in maintaining support services at some level for some of the most needy and vulnerable people of Maine. “At least at this point, both parties recognize that.”

Maine’s Medicaid program, known as MaineCare, serves 250,000 people through 7,000 providers in the state.

The panel’s Democratic majority presented without public explanation its latest plan to revise Baldacci’s original Medicaid cutback proposal and received tentative support from Republicans.

“I think we have a ways to go,” said Rep. Richard Rosen, R-Bucksport, the committee’s ranking Republican House member. He said GOP committee members would treat it positively “for the purposes of moving along.”

Democrats greeted the Republican response favorably.

“We are very willing to discuss this more and continue,” replied Sen. Mary Cathcart, D-Orono, the Senate chairwoman of the panel.

Earlier, Appropriations Committee members discussed staffing alternatives with Corrections Commissioner Martin Magnusson on Saturday with an eye toward balancing safety and savings, but final action was put off.

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