Brace yourselves, Albanians. You may not yet be clear of the Legislature.

Senate Democratic Conference Leader John Sampson is reaching out to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Gov. David Paterson in hopes of getting an agreement to bring both houses back to the Capitol next week – perhaps on Tuesday or Wednesday – to decide how to best allocate some $600 million worth of education funding the state expects to receive following today’s passage by the House of a $26 billion spending bill.

“Senator Sampson thinks the sooner we act the safer New Yorkers’ jobs will be,” said a legislative source.

“It will provide stability going into the September school year if educators know their jobs may no longer be on the line.”

The Legislature needs to decide what formula to use to distribute the funds and also grant school districts to right to use this unexpected windfall, which is coming after their own budgets have already passed.

The money is supposed to be used to prevent teacher layoffs, although some districts already managed to avoid that with salary freezes and other give-back agreements with unionized employees.

All told, New York is expected to receive about $1.4 billion. The balance will come in Medicaid funds known as FMAP, for which the Senate and Assembly both passed a contingency plan before leaving Albany last week.

Gov. David Paterson has said the state is getting about two-thirds of what it expected in FMAP funding back when he first released his executive budget in January. He said the FMAP contingency plan will be used to enact scaled back cuts and make up the difference.

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