AUGUSTA (AP) – Looking toward three days of public hearings on borrowing proposals next week, legislative budget writers turned their attention from school consolidation and other spending or savings initiatives Friday to take a bird’s-eye look at bond packages put forth by Gov. John Baldacci and others.

With the Appropriations Committee occupied that way, panelists on the Taxation Committee waded more deeply into potential options for adjusting the state’s income, sales and property taxes.

The tax committee has already taken partial custody on a temporary basis of a key element of Baldacci’s $6.4 billion biennial budget plan – a proposed $1 increase in the levy on a pack of cigarettes. New tobacco tax receipts are booked at $136 million in the Baldacci budget.

But for now, Taxation Committee members have shelved talks on tobacco alone in favor of taking a sweeping overview of how the whole state tax code might be restructured.

The Appropriations Committee is under pressure to recommend a bonding plan by the end of the month, and Taxation faces a not much more generous timetable for working up a comprehensive reform package.

Simultaneous work sessions kept lobbyists and Baldacci administration officials on the go Friday and the Appropriations Committee scheduled meetings today. One meeting today will bring together a four-member subcommittee of the budget panel to continue discussions on school consolidation proposals – a $36.5 million budget item.

On Monday, the Baldacci administration and legislative budget writers will also be watching another venue – a meeting of the state’s Revenue Forecasting Committee.

Last month, with a report due by March 1, the six-member panel decided to defer any actual adjustments in its current revenue forecast until after March 15, a deadline for final returns by businesses that use a calendar year for tax purposes.

Tax department analysts have cited weak business tax receipts as a reason for lowering estimated revenue on that tax line, but have also said that there is a chance the trend could turn around.

The forecasting committee has hinted that there could be a formal reduction of its revenue estimates by $20 million for fiscal year 2007, which has only three full months left, and $16 million for fiscal years 2008-2009.

Downward reprojections would require some new budgetary rewriting by the Baldacci administration and some reconsideration by lawmakers.