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A total of 14 budget bills were slated to be passed Wednesday night. Several of them have already been voted on, including a spending bill on education which will go ahead now that school aid distribution has been finalized.

Some of the cuts to school aid were restored, with the city seeing a budget cut of $527 million, instead of the original $580 million.

A bill for health care spending was also finalized earlier in the day.

"I think we have direction. I think we made the restorations that are necessary to the governor's budget," said Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. "There is no reason to wait."

There is heightened security in the Capitol, especially around the State Senate and State Assembly chambers. Only senators, staff and press are allowed in those areas due to a large group of protestors in the building.

The protesters are opposed to proposed cuts in education and health care and the end of the so-called millionaires' tax.

"We feel that we should have been represented better, that our children need an education, and we felt that the governor's not doing his job," said a demonstrator. "We feel that he should have made the cuts, have the millionaires pay their fair share, instead of having the children in our community pay for the gap in our community."

"They have the right to protest," said Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos. "They have the right to speak their minds. But they don't have the right to disrupt the functioning of government.

State Senator Kevin Parker, a Democrat, also wanted to see a millionaire's tax in the budget. He says that would have helped mitigate some of the education and health care cuts.

"This is about the future of this state, about our children, about people with disabilities, who we have said we need to protect," said Parker, who plans to vote against the budget. "This budget does not do that."

State lawmakers are looking to pass the first on-time budget since 2005.