It took four hours of debate over 20 amendments, but a $15.4 billion two-year state budget proposal easily cleared the state Senate Thursday.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman James Gray, R-Rochester, said his committee’s proudest achievement is the reversal of more than $160 million in unpopular cuts made by the House of Representatives to Medicaid providers and those relying on community mental health and developmental disability services.

“We made some tough choices with limited resources,” Gray said.

Relying on rosier estimates for future state revenues, the Senate proposal spends nearly $250 million more than the House’s.

Senate Democratic Leader Rebecca Perkins Kwoka of Portsmouth praised the Senate Republicans for making those changes, but she said working families are hurt in o

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