AUGUSTA — The House and Senate are now officially in disagreement on how to fill a $190 million revenue hole, after a bipartisan group of senators convinced their colleagues to vote for a compromise amendment late Thursday night they hope will lead to a bipartisan budget.

“I think we still have a chance to do something as a full Legislature, and I think it’s worth the time to make that effort,” said Sen. Bill Diamond (D-Cumberland County), who introduced an amendment on behalf of a group of three Republicans and three Democrats.

The Senate has 18 Democrats and 17 Republicans, but the amendment passed in a 22-13 vote.

It means more work will have to be done today and most likely over the weekend to get a budget out by next week.

The Senate amendment essentially undoes part of the Democratic budget approved in the House along party lines in an 81-60 vote Thursday afternoon. The Senate did follow the House’s lead in restoring cuts made to the Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability — a fiscal watchdog agency cut by Democratic leadership last week — and $7 million to the state’s hospitals for the primary care doctors they employ, who see Medicaid patients. But the House now will be asked to reconsider its votes on the overall package.

“This amendment is ugly,” said Sen. Peter Mills (R-Somerset County), who worked on the compromise plan. “But it is no less ugly than the majority report. I don’t know why you in the majority want to own this budget. There’s plenty in it to hate.”

Democrats and Republicans on the Appropriations Committee already had agreed to most of the budget, including a $65 million cut in health and human services and a $34 million reduction in state aid for K-12 education, when negotiations fell apart last week.

They divided on cuts to a special Medicaid program that covers impoverished adults without dependent children. Republicans proposed a $12 million cut in the coverage while Democrats said they would accept none. Governor John Baldacci had proposed an $8 million reduction.

Diamond’s amendment would cut $3 million, reducing enrollment in the program from the current 17,600 to 15,000.

Senate President Beth Edmonds left her podium to make a speech on the Senate floor prior to the vote on the amendment.

“I cannot support a cut to this service,” Edmonds said, describing the population served by the program as poor, childless adults, 25 percent of whom are mostly women over 50.

“I am a childless adult. I am a woman over 50,” she said. “There but for fortune, go you or I.”

The Diamond amendment would do a number of other things to add up to $10 million, including cutting the Clean Elections fund by 10 percent for the upcoming general election; requiring legislators to pay 5 percent of their health premiums; reducing out-of-state travel; and, taking money out of the anti-smoking Fund for Healthy Maine and the Efficiency Maine Fund to promote energy conservation.

Just over $1 million of that money would be used to keep the Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability (OPEGA) intact. The rest would get rid of a $9 million scheme that calls for the early sale of people’s lost or forgotten stocks and securities that are declared as unclaimed property with the state. Those stocks are usually sold every three years, but the Democratic budget calls for an annual sale starting next fiscal year, leading to a one-time windfall.

“The market right now is terrible,” said Sen. John Nutting (D-Androscoggin County). “It is not the time to sell three years of securities to try and get some quick cash.”

Nutting worked with Diamond and Mills on the compromise, as did Sen. Lisa Marrache (D-Kennebec County), Sen. Karl Turner (R-Cumberland County) and Sen. Earle McCormick (R-Kennebec County).

One issue that pulled people together was restoring OPEGA.

The House also restored the agency’s independent status, but only put back half its staff. The Senate’s version restores the office to its current staffing level of seven.

The Senate also supported a House plan that gives $7 million back to the state’s hospitals for the primary care physicians they employ. That amendment essentially saves hospitals from a $20 million cut when federal Medicaid matching money is considered.

Both are viewed as politically important restorations, particularly in an election year, and the fight over OPEGA already has spilled into a Senate campaign for the seat being vacated by Sen. Dana Dow (R-Lincoln County).

Former Republican Rep. David Trahan of Waldoboro, who worked hard to create OPEGA when he was in the Legislature, is running against Democratic Rep. Peter Rines of Wiscasset for the Senate.

Trahan was on talk-radio and in the newspapers in the past week, decrying the OPEGA cuts. Rines tried to stake out his ground Thursday by sponsoring an amendment in the House that completely restored OPEGA without any cuts in staff. His amendment didn’t pass, but it was a close 72-68.