ALBANY — Gov. David A. Paterson escalated his battle with the Legislature over the state’s financial crisis on Tuesday, saying that lawmakers could give him the authority to furlough more than 100,000 state employees or face the prospect of shutting down New York’s government.  Though Mr. Paterson is calling for workers to be furloughed for a single day, he warned that he would continue pressing for furloughs until the Legislature agrees to a deal on the state budget, which is more than a month late with no resolution in sight.  Mr. Paterson asked the Senate and the Assembly to approve furloughs in a bill he submitted last week. But because the Legislature has refused to put the measure to a vote, he said, he would include furloughs in the next emergency spending bill. Since the budget deadline expired on March 31, there have been five such bills passed to keep the government running.  The governor’s announced intention has raised the stakes considerably. Because the state’s Constitution severely limits the ability of the Legislature to amend budget bills, lawmakers will face a choice between approving furloughs and rejecting the emergency bill.  “We’re taking an extreme effort now to make sure that we reach a resolution,” Mr. Paterson said at a news conference, “because we are more and more sinking into a deficit situation that we may not be able to ameliorate, and I’m not just going to sit around and let this situation overwhelm the taxpayers of New York.”  The sixth emergency bill issued by Mr. Paterson would require one day of furlough for state employees during the work week beginning May 17, saving the state about $30 million. The Legislature is expected to vote on the bill on Monday. If the bill is rejected, state agencies would not be able to spend money after May 9.  Mr. Paterson’s move places him on a collision course with unions representing public employees. Union leaders quickly assailed the proposal and said they did not believe that their collective bargaining agreements with the state could be modified through legislation.  Some lawmakers supported the union leaders.  Danny Donohue, the president of the state’s largest union of public employees, the Civil Service Employees Association, stopped short of threatening legal action but said in a statement that Mr. Paterson was “mistaken in his belief that creating more chaos and crisis is leadership.”  The Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, has previously said that he did not believe the furloughs would be legal. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, he did not say if the Assembly would pass the new emergency bill but argued that if Mr. Paterson, as manager of the state’s work force, had the power to furlough employees, it did not matter what the Legislature did.  “If it’s not legal, we can’t make it legal, and if it is legal, the governor does not need the Legislature to do it,” Mr. Silver said.  John L. Sampson, the Democratic leader in the Senate, said that although he believed the furloughs were illegal, he would vote for the bill and urge fellow Democrats to do so because there was no other choice. “The bottom line is, I am not going to shut government down,” Mr. Sampson said.  Administration officials said they needed the Legislature’s approval to rewrite the statute that details what government workers are paid, separate from any question over the state’s contracts with the unions.  Even if the Legislature does approve the bill, however, Mr. Paterson’s plan may face a court challenge. Courts in other states have said, in some cases, that furloughs were illegal, ruling that they violated collective bargaining agreements by unilaterally reducing wages and salaries.  Mr. Paterson’s push for furloughs reflects how protracted and fruitless the budget negotiations with the Legislature have become.  Senate Democrats, whose most vulnerable seats this fall are in districts where anger over property taxes is high, have balked at any budget deal that does not include hundreds of millions of dollars in property tax rebates for homeowners. Democrats in the Assembly want to restore significant portions of Mr. Paterson’s cuts to education and health care, using billions in new state borrowing.  But Mr. Paterson is also seeking to address a different, unresolved issue: the $250 million in unspecified state work force savings that the governor proposed in his executive budget but has been unable to wring from public employees’ unions.  Mr. Paterson’s hands have been tied in part because he agreed last year not to lay off state workers through the end of 2010, in exchange for the Legislature’s agreement to create a new pension tier that would save New York money over the long term.  But that has also stripped him of the leverage that governors have traditionally used to pry concessions from public employees’ unions during tight fiscal times. As a result, the unions have refused to embrace proposals from Mr. Paterson, including requests for workers to give up 4 percent raises scheduled for this year.  Jeremy W. Peters contributed reporting.
Gov. David A. Paterson said he would include work furloughs in an emergency spending bill that is needed to prevent a government shutdown.