SACRAMENTO -- Legislative Democrats sent revised budget plans to both houses Wednesday night that would restore nearly $1 billion in spending and that seek a yearlong extension on taxes that could jeopardize any opportunity for an on-time deal.

Lawmakers are racing against a June 15 constitutional deadline to approve a balanced budget. If they fail to meet it, they will not be paid after that date until they reach an accord on how to close a $9.6 billion revenue gap.

Though Democrats have the power to approve a budget with a majority vote, they need four Republicans -- two in either house -- to approve any revenues. There was little sign the two parties are close to an agreement.

Votes on the budget could come as early as Thursday, though nothing has been scheduled as Gov. Jerry Brown continues to meet with Republicans seeking a deal on pension rollbacks, regulatory fixes and a spending cap.

Republicans insisted a so-called bridge tax would undermine any potential deal. Under the Senate plan, a temporary tax would keep in place for one year the same level of sales and auto taxes California residents now pay.

Voters would be given the opportunity to ratify or nullify the extensions as early as September. Republicans complained that voters would have to live with them another nine months even if they rejected them.

"The question is this bridge tax -- it's not really a bridge tax, it's a tax," said Sen. Bob Huff, R-Diamond
Bar, the ranking GOP member on the budget committee.

"How do you have an election in September but still continue the tax nine months after? That's called a budget year. If voters say no, but it continues another nine months, that flies in the face of the voters' decision."

The Senate plan differs from Brown's plan of a three-month extension before a vote, but both would be used to cover potential budgeting disruptions in schools, universities, public safety and court systems.

"We've looked at every conceivable option and, ultimately, this is the one that provides the most stability," said Michael Cohen, chief deputy director for the state Department of Finance.

"If there's no guarantee of revenues up through an election, there's going to be a gap that you'd need to fill with spending reductions, and those reductions would hit K-12, universities and public safety.

"At a time while we're trying to create stability to the state's core programs," Cohen added, "it doesn't make a lot of sense to make those reductions on June 15 and immediately have to take them off if voters want to extend taxes, as we think they will."

Republicans said they do not like Brown's three-month "bridge" tax either, and accused him of going back on his campaign promise of allowing voters to decide whether they want taxes. But Democrats countered that Republicans blocked a special election in June, and now drastic cuts would have to be enacted before a vote if temporary taxes are not approved by the Legislature.

After opposing a special election since Brown proposed it in January, Republicans now say they support one, but only after austerity measures are taken. They said that Brown and Democrats failed to take the "pathway" to an election earlier in the year by rejecting their reform proposals.

The office of Senate GOP Leader Bob Dutton, R-Cucamonga, re-released a letter Brown sent to GOP leaders announcing he was halting negotiations, attempting to pin the blame on him. But, Brown, who had been in lengthy negotiations with a small group of Republicans for weeks, only halted them when Dutton dropped a list of 53 demands on Brown's desk in the final hour.

Since then, Brown and Republicans say they have actually moved close to an agreement on pension and regulatory rollbacks, as well as a spending cap.

But the hang-up is the bridge tax.

The Senate and Assembly budgets, which are similar, restore $744 million to K-12 schools and community colleges that was owed to them from funding shortages in previous years, and another $200 million for child care spending.