CAPITOL — Closed-door negotiations between the Legislature and Gov. David Paterson continued through Monday in an effort to trim New York’s state budget, staving off further deficits in an economy sinking into recession.

The Legislature was scheduled to hold the “emergency economic session” called by Paterson today.

Any cuts would follow a 3.35-percent cut across the board to state agencies and the State University of New York ordered by Paterson in the spring.

The current budget — $122 billion, adopted in April — increased spending by $5 billion, or 4.5 percent, over the previous fiscal year. That followed the 2007-08 budget that increased spending 8 percent.

“We’re really not cutting the budget, let’s be serious,” Paterson said Monday. “We’re cutting the growth in the budget. And if it’s that hard to cut the growth in the budget, you can see how we got to this point.”

Paterson said the spending reductions are needed to avoid further deficits this year, a projected deficit of $6.4 billion in 2009-2010, and more than $20 billion in deficits over the coming three years.

“Our duty, constitutionally, is not to delay or cajole or in any way not address the situation,” Paterson said Monday on WNYC public radio.

The pressure on the Legislature mounted Monday.

The full-page ad Monday in The New York Times by a consortium of hospitals and their employees’ union depicted a nurse sternly looking into the camera as she held a child, apparently in distress, covered in a blanket.

The ad is headlined: “Three reasons to reject Governor Paterson’s $1 billion in health care cuts.”

Paterson, however, isn’t seeking $1 billion in health care cuts.

Also on Monday the New York State AFL-CIO voted to withhold endorsement of lawmakers seeking re-election until the end of the special session.

President Denis Hughes said the often important endorsements will go to “candidates who have shown a clear understanding of the needs and concerns of working men and women.”

NYSUT withheld its endorsement last week of many incumbents who voted for a related Paterson proposal, one that would cap local school tax growth to 4 percent a year.

A statewide Siena Research Institute poll released Monday found 80 percent of New Yorkers wanted the Legislature to cut spending rather than raise taxes, but there was no clear choice in what to cut.

The poll also found nearly two-thirds of New Yorkers thought the economy is the worst since the fiscal crisis of the 1970s, but 55 percent weren’t confident the Legislature would address the problem this year.

The poll that had Paterson at his highest approval rating yet — 59 percent — questioned 627 voters Aug. 11-14. It had a margin of error of about 4 percent.