RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The North Carolina Senate gave initial approval Wednesday to a $19.7 billion budget for next year that Republicans say softens cuts to public education and lets temporary taxes expire. But Gov. Beverly Perdue and other Democrats contend it will lead to thousands of layoffs and damage health care for the poor.

As expected, the GOP-controlled chamber voted along party lines in favor of the two-year budget for the fiscal year starting July 1. The approved version is about $220 million less than Perdue proposed earlier this year.

An earlier Senate plan released late last week would have cut twice that amount, but Republicans restored funds for the public schools in a bid to win the votes of House Democrats later this week.

"Our original proposal would have spent much less than this," Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, said at the close of more than three hours of debate that ended with a 31-18 Senate vote. "This budget represents a significant compromise, an effort to reach across the aisle and an effort to do what's best for North Carolina."

While a group of five House Democrats appear ready to back the plan after a final Senate vote Thursday — potentially enough votes to withstand a threatened Perdue veto — Senate Democrats offered no such love Wednesday.

They contend the bill would harm public schools, the University of North Carolina campuses and the community college system, which together would still see reductions of more than $900 million compared to what was agreed was needed to maintain current service levels.

Democrats cite emails and documents from representatives of all three branches of public education that calculate the Senate budget would eliminate 13,000 positions in the next fiscal year, including nearly 9,300 in the public schools and 2,700 UNC system faculty and staff.

"What's been done in this budget to boost the economy will take years, I mean years, to offset the thousands of jobs lost through this process in education," said Sen. Charlie Dannelly, D-Mecklenburg. "We all know that the basic foundation of economic growth is a sound effective educational system ... This budget diminishes all of that."

The handful of House Democrats who have said they support the measure could make it hard for Perdue's veto to be sustained. But Perdue on Wednesday remained hostile to the GOP plan and her hopes rest on changing the minds of Republicans or dissuading four House Democrats from crossing the aisle and backing it.

"The budget choices in front of us have made the governor angrier than any other issue she's faced during her time in office," Perdue spokeswoman Chrissy Pearson said. "Apparently the Republican leaders in the General Assembly are not interested in doing what's right for our people."

Republicans argue that they've tempered the reductions in the public schools, preserved state funds for all teaching assistants and paid for more than 1,100 new teachers in early grades. They say Democrats are exaggerating the number of job cuts and that they'll be reduced by the number of open positions, attrition and more than $250 million in federal funds that local districts must spend before October 2012 on job preservation. Berger's office didn't immediately provide an estimate of how many people in filled positions would lose their jobs.

The Senate bill, like the House plan, lets temporary income and sales taxes expire that would have generated $1.3 billion during next fiscal year. The Senate also provides a small business tax break.

When GOP lawmakers took over the Legislature, they made some pledges, including protecting public school classrooms, said Sen. Richard Stevens, R-Wake and one of the Senate's chief budget-writers.

"We were not going to extend temporary taxes and we were going to reduce the cost of government," Stevens said at the start of the debate. "We believe we have done all that."

Perdue, legislative Democrats and their allies have pleaded for the GOP to keep some or all of the temporary penny increase in the sales tax to avoid the deep cuts.

House Rules Chairman Sen. Tom Apodaca, R-Henderson, gave Democrats an opportunity to keep three-quarters of the penny in place — through an amendment that would have generated more than $800 million for state reserves — but it failed by a vote of 47-3. Given the lack of GOP support, the amendment was apparently designed to put Democrats on the record in support of a tax increase. Even Apodaca voted against it.

"If you want to raise taxes, here's your vehicle," Apodaca said.

On party-line votes, the Senate turned back several Democratic amendments. One would have allowed Planned Parenthood to keep receiving funds through the state to provide medical services unrelated to abortion for poor women and would have prevented state regulators from seeking the elimination of Medicaid services not required by the government to meet cost-savings targets.

"This budget in general is not just an attack on citizens. It's an attack on women," said Sen. Gladys Robinson, D-Guilford, in support of the Planned Parenthood amendment. "You've gone from attacking their children, all the way to their health."

Republicans point out that nearly $3 million in the state budget through federal grants would go to teen pregnancy prevention initiatives.

If the Senate passes the budget by Thursday, the measure would then go back to the House, where leaders say they could give the budget final approval by early Saturday and send it to Perdue.