ALBANY, N.Y. - Before Governor Andrew Cuomo and the legislature can agree on a state spending plan due at the end of the month, they must first agree on a starting point.

And over the weekend talks broke down over how much revenue the state is actually working with.

Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said in a radio interview that the governor walked away in the middle of negotiations.

"We were surprised, because frankly no Governor had ever done that before," Stewart-Cousins said.

The revenue forecast must now be determined by the state comptroller. But for the first time since being Governor, Cuomo is no longer emphasizing how important it is to pass an on time budget by April 1.

“Yeah, being on time would be nice, but being right is essential. And I’m not going to do a budget that I know is not going to stand up to the test of time. It’s not even smart for the legislature to want that budget," Cuomo said.

The governor’s surprise stance drew this response from the Senate Majority Leader.

"One of the things that I’ve heard the governor say over the past week is that he is predicting we will have a late budget. I don’t know why he is predicting that. I see no reason to have a late budget. We haven’t had one," Stewart-Cousins said.

Stewart-Cousins maintains that they were only about $500 Million apart when talks broke down. People close to Cuomo say the amount was higher. Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie declined to say what the Assembly’s number was, calling it “irrelevant.”

"I think the bottom line for people in the state to understand is the Governor, the Senate and the Assembly could not come to a three-way agreement. I think that’s the message," Heastie said.

Both the legislature and the governor have top priorities that they would like to see in the budget such as congestion pricing, marijuana legalization and criminal justice reform. But observers say starting on this note does not bode well for any of those.