New York state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, using her Albany lingo, told reporters Wednesday afternoon that state budget negotiations have reached “the end of the middle” but that talks remains impacted by President Donald Trump’s agenda in Washington that could bring various government cuts.

“The process is tedious because what we see on the horizon coming from our Republican colleagues in Washington,” Stewart-Cousins said.

“We do have seven congressional Republicans in the majority that, if they had the strength, they could actually stand together and make sure New York is protected,” she added. “So it is a hope that they will take what’s happening very, very seriously.”

The upper chamber leader said the Legislature is set to pass the debt service bill on Wednesday, which signals the “beginning of the end” of talks on the state’s spending plan.

The budget is due next Tuesday, April 1. Should there be an extender to keep the government running, it would be passed Tuesday morning, Stewart-Cousins said, since Monday is Eid al-Fitr, the festival marking the end of Ramadan.

One of the biggest policy items floated in the state budget is some sort of statewide cellphone policy in schools. Gov. Kathy Hochul is proposing a bell-to-bell cellphone ban, which is backed by the New York State United Teachers. The state Senate’s one-house budget proposal would allow local school districts to determine if phones may be used outside of the classroom.

“I think, as of around yesterday, the majority of our members are more comfortable with a bell-to-bell approach, they really are,” Stewart-Cousins said Wednesday. “And they will have time, I mean there will be some time, obviously, for folks to be able to acclimate because this isn’t happening today. It would happen in the next school year. And we just want to make sure again, that there are appropriate, there are appropriate things in place for those exceptional circumstances that every school will need to address.”