AUGUSTA (AP) – State lawmakers staged an early session show of across-the-aisle cooperation Thursday, overwhelmingly affirming a unanimous Appropriations Committee deal on a $127 million supplemental budget bill.

The bulk of the bill earmarks money for health and human services, including funding for hospital payment settlements and Medicaid program shortfalls. The measure is designed to cover unanticipated state government costs through June.

The package passed in the House of Representatives on a vote of 138-5 and was approved 34-0 in the Senate.

There were no efforts to amend the committee recommendation and no real debate.

Democrats and Republicans alike lauded the display of bipartisanship and professed hope that the same spirit would carry through deliberations on a $6.4 billion General Fund budget put forth by Gov. John Baldacci for the two-year cycle that begins on July 1.

“But the hard work is ahead of us,” House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree warned.

Committee deliberations on the supplemental package focused in part on management issues within the Department of Health and Human Services, a long-standing sore spot for legislators from both parties.

The biennial budget, however, is not only vastly bigger but also already much more controversial.

As proposed, Baldacci hopes to shrink 152 district administrations to 26 units known as regional centers. Administration officials have booked $36.5 million in savings from such a consolidation for fiscal 2009.

Lawmakers also face several other major school system overhaul proposals. A marathon public hearing on the various plans was held Monday at the Augusta Civic Center.

Baldacci’s budget plan, which would increase state spending by an average 4.6 percent in each of the next two years, contains no broad-based tax increases.

The package would, though, raise the cigarette tax by a dollar a pack, producing about $66 million a year and bringing the tax per-pack in Maine to $3 – the nation’s highest among the states.

The supplemental spending bill is meant to provide $20 million for outstanding payments to Maine hospitals and up to $82 million to cover new health care costs expected through the rest of the year, according to a Democratic analysis.

Other elements include an allocation of funding for flood relief in York County and in Canton, support for video-conferencing in state courts and $3 million for a high-speed optical network for the University of Maine System.