AUGUSTA (AP) – There were no bows to the inevitable Sunday, but optimism was at a premium as legislative negotiators gathered again at the State House for deliberations on Gov. John Baldacci’s supplemental budget package.

The extended talks held out a possibility of a bipartisan compromise but no one appeared to be counting strongly on one.

Darkness fell with legislators still behind close doors. Democrats and Republicans alike said they needed more time to either reach an accord or keep developing their own budget-balancing measures for the fiscal year that begins on July 1.

Originally pegged at $160 million, the governor’s plan was still being tweaked by administration officials over the weekend as Democrats and Republicans on the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee discussed its merits and floated alternatives.

Past talk of an end-of-March deadline no longer even echoed and fatigue sometimes seemed to have overtaken urgency among the negotiators. Decisions reached to date were labeled tentative. Timelines were reduced to: soon, maybe.

Hours of private huddling, corner caucuses and open work sessions were monitored by an occasionally slap-happy but hardy band of regulars – department officials, legislative staff, professional lobbyists and other advocates. Many if not most had seen similar bargaining bouts before. For them, the low-key chaos was familiar, in the way the plots of classics movies become familiar to cinema cults.

Crowded public hearings featuring pleas from social service program recipients and providers had given way to the rituals of deal-making: whispered conversations and swapped lists.

Heading into the latest talks, the Baldacci administration had scaled back $21.5 million in proposed savings from eliminated services, limitations on services, rate reductions and other MaineCare program curbs to about $14.3 million.

The Appropriations Committee, in a decision subject to further review, had lined up behind more service maintenance so that the cuts that lawmakers said they were willing to impose totaled about $9.7 million, less than half the administration’s original target.

That put more pressure on the panel to locate additional money. Options under discussion included a delay in state purchases of new computers and stepped-up collections of reimbursements from the federal government or private insurance for mental health services provided to children.

Lawmakers arrived at their State House committee room and disappeared into back offices in mid-afternoon Sunday. Baldacci was already in his office just down the hall while top administration budget and policy officials and staff stood by.

As negotiations stretched into the night, departmental budget experts shuttled from group to group as lawmakers sought to cost out various proposals.

AP-ES-04-04-04 1930EDT