ALBANY, N.Y. — Republicans in the state Senate cut Democrats a rare break Thursday, allowing an ailing senator to vote out of turn on pieces of New York’s $131.8 billion budget so she could return to a hospital.

Without Sen. Ruth Hassell-Thompson, a lawmaker from Mount Vernon, Democrats wouldn’t have their full 32 votes, all of which they needed to pass remaining budget bills.

The Senate on Thursday approved the portion of the budget decreeing that 80 percent of the State University of New York’s $620 tuition hike would go to the state instead of SUNY. A press release issued by the SUNY Student Assembly on Tuesday said that funding for areas that were initially facing great cuts — such as financial aid, university-wide programming and community colleges — are restored in the proposed budget.

University-wide programming, which would affect the SUNY SA, was facing a 50 percent cut. The state’s Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) and a loan program called NY HELPS were also facing cuts. Funding for community colleges was to be reduced by 10 percent.

The Senate, voting 32-30 along party lines, passed another budget bill Thursday covering family assistance, then health and mental hygiene, for the fiscal year that started Wednesday. Senators passed the transportation and environmental conservation budgets Tuesday and were still debating public protection issues.

Of primary contention now for the Senate are issues like revising the Rockefeller-era drug laws.

Hassell-Thompson was back briefly on Thursday morning to cast eight votes ahead of the debate. She first fell ill Tuesday.

Senate Republican Leader Dean Skelos said they hoped for her quick recovery “because in the Senate we are one family.” The Republicans, who had the majority and Senate control for decades until this year, argued later to keep current stiffer drug penalties and keep three upstate prisons open. Both amendments were defeated along party lines before the Senate voted 32-30 to pass the legislation, which Gov. David Paterson promised to sign.

Sen. Eric Schneiderman, a New York City Democrat who wrote part of the measure, said Gov. Nelson Rockefeller in the 1970s pushed for legislation to send any dealer of hard drugs to prison for life in response to public opinion polls showing crime and drugs were top concerns. The revisions eliminate mandatory minimum prison terms for several drug crimes, giving judges latitude to sentence offenders to probation and treatment programs, in some cases dismissing criminal charges.

Other budget measures would overhaul the income tax structure, forcing wealthier residents, beginning with single filers earning $200,000 a year, to pay a higher tax rate of 7.85 percent. Rates would increase to 8.97 percent on annual incomes above $500,000.

The state is facing a projected $17.7 billion budget gap this year, and the budget uses federal stimulus money, tax hikes and some spending cuts to close it.

— Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.