AUGUSTA – The Maine Senate took a step back from its week-old budget proposal Thursday and overwhelmingly endorsed a new tax-and-spending package that eliminates the governor’s laptop computer fund and leaves the Rainy Day Fund at $110 million.

With four members absent, the Senate voted 29-2 in favor of its latest amendment after killing an earlier proposal that passed 31-4 last week. The $5 billion, two-year budget embraced by the Senate shortly before 8:30 p.m. remains at odds with the House where leadership was developing a competing amendment it hoped would be supported by a supermajority of the 151 members.

Leaders in both the House and Senate expressed optimism Thursday that a compromise spending plan that can attract the required two-thirds majority in both houses will be agreed to before the Maine Legislature’s June 20 statutory adjournment date. Lawmakers have recessed until Tuesday, giving all parties a four-day break from a tiring and emotional weeklong debate over budget priorities.

Last month, the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee gave unanimous approval to a budget package supported by the governor that left the laptop or Learning Technology Fund intact at $50 million, kept the Rainy Day Fund at $110 million, closed Maine’s 27 state liquor stores and imposed $65 million in new taxes achieved by increases to the cigarette tax and the meals and lodging tax. With some reservations, the House approved the package 111-29 on March 28.

When the measure was sent to the Senate, the 35-member body amended the budget bill after Democrats and Republicans closed ranks in opposition to the tax increases as well as to fund several programs not in the Appropriations Committee package. In what independent Sen. Jill Goldthwait of Bar Harbor referred to as a “betrayal” of the process, the senators collaborated to eliminate the new taxes and reduce the Rainy Day Fund to about $85 million while incorporating the laptop fund into that same account.

The amended Senate budget closed only five liquor stores this year and deferred action on the others until the end of next year. The plan gave a $6,000 income tax exemption to military retirees and provided $4.8 million to the state’s nursing homes for cost of living allowance increases that were not covered in the Appropriations Committee’s budget. The amendment left about $7 million for so-called “new spending” initiatives, about the same as was recommended by the Appropriations Committee.

The Senate’s action was strongly denounced by House leadership, Goldthwait and Gov. Angus S. King, all of whom were left out of the loop by the senators. Critics charged that the Senate’s amended budget robbed the state of its savings, paid for ongoing programs without a reliable stream of funding and risked exacerbating the state’s ongoing deficit between expenses and revenue receipts, sometimes referred to as the budget’s structural gap.

The budget has remained in limbo between the disagreeing House and Senate since Friday, but Senate President Pro Tem Richard Bennett, a Norway Republican, said Thursday night that the Senate’s latest proposal should eliminate many of the objections voiced by critics of the initial amended budget.

Under the new amendment, the Senate budget would:

. Eliminate the governor’s proposed $65 million tax increases.

. Maintain the Rainy Day Fund at $110 million.

. Transfer the $50 million from the laptop fund into the state’s General Fund.

. Provide $4.3 million to provide every school in Maine with a laptop computer for each of its seventh-grade students.

. Close eight liquor stores immediately and shut down another six pending the completion of a study on liquor distribution. Thirteen stores would remain open as part of the liquor distribution plan.

“This is a new and improved version of last week’s budget amendment,” said Sen. Ken Lemont, R-Kittery. “It continues our commitment to families and our elderly. It is a responsible plan that puts aside egos and politics and focuses on the men, women and children of the state of Maine.”

Earlier in the day, Democratic and Republican leaders in the House reached several common fundamental points of agreement that is expected to lead to the presentation of a competing House budget amendment next week. Elements of the plan, which reportedly have the support of the governor, include decreasing the laptop computer fund from $50 million to $35 million.

Other aspects of the still-to-be-shaped package included shelving the expansion of the meals and lodging tax to restaurants that don’t serve alcohol while retaining the 26-cent-per-pack cigarette tax increase. The Rainy Day Fund would remain at $110 million as proposed by the Appropriations Committee. The plan tinkers slightly with the repayment schedule on the Maine State Retirement System debt.

“I think we’ve come a long ways on the proposal,” said House Majority Leader Patrick Colwell, D-Gardiner. “We had hoped that the Senate would have reacted a little more receptively to our proposal, but at the same time, we’re still optimistic.”