FRANKFORT — The Senate and House failed again Tuesday to agree on a budget, and the attorney general's office said Gov. Paul Patton had the authority to run the state without one.

        The budget stalemate lasted beyond the General Assembly's annual session and into the eighth day of a special session. The legislature has been late with budgets in the past, most recently in 1994, but has never failed to pass one before the end of the budget cycle, which ends June 30.

        If lawmakers end their special session without a budget, they would not get another crack at it unless Mr. Patton ordered a second special session.

        House Majority Leader Greg Stumbo said the session was likely to end today. But Senate President David Williams said a breakdown in talks Tuesday night was “not the end of the story.”

        The sticking point has been Kentucky's partial public financing of gubernatorial elections. Mr. Patton, a Democrat, submitted a budget with $9 million for campaign finance, and the Democrat-controlled House passed it. The Senate, with a 20-18 Republican majority, eliminated the appropriation in its version of the budget.

        A new, two-year budget cycle begins July 1. In a letter to Mr. Patton's general counsel, Assistant Attorney General Ryan Halloran said the governor “not only has the power to carry out his duties, but under the Constitution and statutes, the duty to do so” if a new budget is not enacted. Mr. Patton asked for an opinion, which has no legal effect but might lend weight to a lawsuit.

        The Senate passed its version of the $35 billion budget bill Tuesday on a vote of 35-1 and sent it to the House for a concurrence vote. It also passed a budget bill for the judicial branch, 38-0. The House promptly rejected both. The Senate refused to back down, and negotiations began.

        House leaders offered to scale back public financing so that candidate slates in the general election would be given $3 million with no possibility of an increase. Participating slates in the primary elections could get extra money if they were being outspent by rivals who did not take public funding.

        Late Tuesday, Mr. Stumbo and House Speaker Jody Richards said the Senate's counter-offer was a deal breaker: no public funding at all in the general election; in addition, the law's provision for a runoff primary would be abolished.

        “We would never agree to that,” Mr. Richards, who is running for governor, told reporters. “They know we cannot give on taking the money out of the general election. ... We are not going to give any more.”

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