ALBANY – With the budget debate smoldering in the background, charter schools are back on the legislative agenda.

Lawmakers are expected to consider next week whether to lift the statewide cap on charter schools. While support for the schools is mixed in both houses, lawmakers may approve an expansion in exchange for programs and money that Governor Pataki eliminated from the budget.

Mr. Pataki in January proposed increasing the maximum number of charter schools to 250 from 100 and excluded New York City from the cap. He also gave the city the power to authorize 50 schools on its own. The Legislature rejected the governor’s proposal and left the cap in place.

Next week, Assembly Democrats are expected to meet in conference to determine their position on the schools, which are publicly financed but independent of local school districts.

Lawmakers interviewed said they anticipate that the Legislature will support lifting the cap and expect that such approval will be part of a deal with Mr. Pataki. “It will come down to the trade,” one of the most vocal proponents of charter schools in the Assembly, Sam Hoyt, a Democrat who represents Buffalo, said.

The size and scope of the expansion may differ from the governor’s proposal. Some lawmakers say they would support an increase but want to give veto power to school districts, all of which – with the exception of New York City – are opposed to charter schools.

It also isn’t clear what might be traded for lifting the cap. Lawmakers said the Assembly might be looking for Mr. Pataki to free up more than $1 billion in Medicaid spending that they approved but Mr. Pataki declared unconstitutional.

Senate Republicans are pleading with Mr. Pataki to approve a plan to give hundreds of millions of dollars in property tax rebates to homeowners statewide. Mr. Pataki said the program, as it was spelled out in the legislative budget, was unconstitutional and thus void. Another possibility is that lawmakers would warm up to charter schools if Mr. Pataki supported giving them their first pay raise since 1998, the year when charters were first approved. Their salaries stand at $79,500, not including bonuses.

Mr. Pataki has insisted that budget negotiations are over, though he has said he would consider fiscal changes that did not involve more spending or lead to larger deficits. A spokesman for the governor, Saleem Cheeks, said Mr. Pataki believes an expansion of charter schools is “vital” for the state.

Support for the schools is heaviest among the black and Puerto Rican caucus, members of which represent districts with some of the poorest-performing public schools in the state.

Some lawmakers in upstate areas, where larger percentages of students attend charter schools, have resisted lifting the cap because they say the schools are draining too much money away from the school districts.

School districts lose between $8,000 and $9,000 when one of their students transfers to a charter school. The districts spend an average of between $13,000 and $15,000 a student. The teachers unions are largely opposed to charter schools, whose teachers are generally not unionized.

There are 79 active charter schools in New York, enrolling about 22,500 students, according to the New York Charter Schools Association in Albany. Twenty-one more schools have been approved and are set to open in 2006 and 2007.

At the start of the school year, there were 47 charter schools in New York City – 17 in Manhattan, 13 in Brooklyn and the Bronx, and four in Queens, according to the New York City Center for Charter School Excellence.