North Dakota legislators couldn't finish their 2005 session on Friday, hampered by quarrels over college spending and other arguments.

Lawmakers hoped to wrap up the session's work Saturday, on its 76th day, one day short of the modern record. Both the House and Senate worked Friday night in a push toward final adjournment.

The budget bill for North Dakota's university system won Senate approval late Friday, after being initially thwarted by senators who wanted more money for North Dakota State University, Bismarck State College and Lake Region State College at Devils Lake.

Senators groused that the measure included only $2 million for so-called "equity" payments to colleges. NDSU, Lake Region and Bismarck State were expected to get a large share of the money, which would be doled out by the Board of Higher Education.

Sen. Tony Grindberg, R-Fargo, said more cash could be spent on equity payments if the bill were shorn of specific grant and maintenance items. For example, the legislation includes $150,000 that could be used to aid doctoral students at the University of Mary in Bismarck.

"We still have many things that the House sprinkled into this bill," Grindberg said. "A little more work should be done … to come up with some alternatives for a few more dollars within the budget for equity."

The budget allows the Legislature's Audit and Fiscal Review Committee to order an audit of the University of North Dakota's medical school, a proposal school administrators have resisted because they are already preparing for a national accreditation review.

The House still must review the university system budget bill, and representatives prepared to take it up Saturday, on what was expected to be the session's final day.

Legislators finished work on the budget for the Department of Human Services, the largest in state government at $1.68 billion over two years. It includes a $71.5 million increase in state general fund spending alone, a 17 percent rise over two years.

Senators echoed concerns, expressed Thursday by House critics of the spending bill, that it offers meager pay increases to workers who serve developmentally disabled North Dakotans in local group homes.

"We need to be aware of the fact that just because we're talking about so many cents per hour wage increase, that money does not all trickle down to the workers who are doing this difficult work," said Sen. Judy Lee, R-West Fargo.

Legislation to provide state aid to local schools, the subject of hours of negotiations and more than a dozen meetings of House and Senate negotiators, won House approval late Friday. Senators were expected to review the bill Saturday.

The blueprint increases state per-student payments to schools by 10 percent over two years, from $2,623 to $2,875.

Representatives endorsed the school measure 66-26, despite objections about the bill's inclusion of a steadily rising property tax rate that reallocates some school tax resources statewide.

The rate is called the mill levy deduction. It is now 36 mills. The legislation would increase the deduction to 38 mills in the next school year, and three mills annually afterward.

Rural lawmakers say the increasing deduction, coupled with continued school enrollment declines, will hammer their districts by shifting money elsewhere.

"Even though we're putting more dollars into (local schools) … the fact is, the formula just doesn't work right with the level of funding we're providing," said Rep. Lee Kaldor, D-Mayville.