The dirty little secret in Albany is that deadlines don’t matter. During the Cuomo and most of the Pataki years, the governor and lawmakers treated the annual April 1 budget deadline as if it were just a gentle reminder to start negotiating for real. Albany would have kept the late streak alive if it weren’t for the interference of good government groups, which successfully tapped into public discontent over state government by latching onto late budgets as a convenient and accessible symbol of dysfunction.

For Governor Pataki and lawmakers, it was also a problem that was easy to fix. Instead of waiting until the summer to pass the budget and keeping the government humming along by passing budget extenders, Albany in 2005 and 2006 passed what was technically an on-time budget. The Legislature and the executive simply put off settling the most contentious items for a couple of months. Last year, for instance, Mr. Pataki approved a “supplemental budget” that tacked on more than $2 billion of spending, including virtually all of the money that the governor had shaved from Medicaid, and $1.8 billion in new debt.

The ploy was actually a return to the Rockefeller and Carey way of doing business, a tradition cast aside by Governor Cuomo, who cracked down on supplemental budgeting. In the last two years of the Pataki administration, nothing really had changed, but no one could complain that Albany was still passing late budgets.

Governor Spitzer seems to understand that the public isn’t waiting for Albany to finish negotiations, like an editor breathing down the neck of a reporter. A late budget is neither inherently good nor bad for New Yorkers; it’s what the governor makes of it that matters.

For Mr. Spitzer, a late budget presents not so much a political headache but an opportunity. This year’s budget will probably be the most important of Mr. Spitzer’s governorship, serving as a symbolic test of the governor’s ability to free Albany from entrenched habits, such as an untouchable education funding formula that has prevented a more rational distribution of school aid around the state. By purposefully missing the deadline, Mr. Spitzer will only increase his chances of winning major concessions that he needs to set a pattern for the remainder of his administration.

One reason a late budget would likely produce such an advantage is that it would allow Mr. Spitzer to go into full-attack mode, by far his most comfortable position as a politician. Mr. Spitzer would be handed the chance to focus even more public attention on the Republican Senate’s efforts to drive up spending by billions of dollars. Mr. Spitzer could simply dip into his political war chest to pay for a television campaign that rebrands a late budget as a badge of honor instead of a mark of shame. The campaign would be based on the assumption that New Yorkers care less about tardiness than wasteful spending.

More important, Mr. Spitzer could take advantage of a late budget by gaining leverage particular to the power of the executive. Mr. Spitzer has said he hasn’t ruled out shutting down government if he doesn’t get a budget on his desk by the deadline. Budget experts say he couldn’t stop paying state employees because under contract rules, he would need to give them 30 days of notice. However, it doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing situation. As one budget expert told me, the governor has almost unfettered discretion over what to include in his emergency appropriation bills.

The governor controls both the content and the timing. In other words, Mr. Spitzer can threaten a partial shutdown of Albany, making sure that paychecks keep on flowing to state employees but cutting off Medicaid payments to hospitals, halting contract payments, and freezing capital projects. The Republican Senate majority leader, Joseph Bruno, who has assumed the role of patron of the hospital industry, would face a Hobson’s choice, putting him under tremendous pressure to deal.

The governor could also submit emergency bills that are good for only one day, forcing a Legislature that typically is in session three days a week to return to Albany every day to keep the government going. These are techniques that Mr. Pataki, who gradually lost the will to challenge lawmakers over his three terms, never attempted. He preferred a painless continuation of government that basically extended out the current year’s budget a few more months.

The main winners during the overtime periods were lawmakers who used the extra time to collect more rewards, making it more difficult for Mr. Pataki to defend a late budget in the first place. With a more aggressive approach, Mr. Spitzer can make lawmakers wish they had settled things on time. For the governor, it’s better late than ever.