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SACRAMENTO — California’s budget impasse is on course to break records as it heads into the ninth week and the Legislature prepares for the final marathon week of its 2002 session. 

The latest recorded budget in the state was signed Sept. 2, in 1992, and as that date approaches there are few signs of a break in the standoff between Assembly Republicans and Democrats over $3.7 billion in tax increases. 

Friday is officially the last day of the 2002 legislative session in California. But the Assembly has yet to approve a budget plan and, as of late last week, neither side appeared prepared to budget on the issues. 

Meanwhile, state vendors, college students and some programs for the poor and disabled are feeling the sting of the state operating without a budget for nearly two months. 

“It certainly is serious,” said Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project. “It means that people who are used to having care and services provided to them won’t have that available.” 

State agencies continued to operate and 250,000 non-legislative state workers continued to be paid last week. 

However, the budget impasse has prevented California college students from receiving grants to pay for books and housing, it has held up lawmakers’ and staffers’ paychecks for two months, and it has halted payments to vendors who sell supplies to the state’s prisons and hospitals. 

It also has stalled payments of nearly 384,000 claims to elderly, blind and disabled Californians who participate in a program of assistance for homeowners or renters. State Controller Kathleen Connell also has withheld paychecks for members of the Legislature and statewide officeholders, including Gov. Gray Davis and herself.