ALBANY – A state budget stand-off continued for a sixth day Thursday between Gov. Kathy Hochul and legislative leaders opposed to changing controversial bail laws amid rising crime.

Hochul is proposing to give judges more leeway to impose bail or jail people ahead of their trials when they believe defendants might commit crimes or otherwise endanger public safety.

“I support the fundamental premise behind the bail laws, but we need to make sure that judges understand that they have the discretion to make the right decision in the right case,” Hochul told reporters at the Capitol on Wednesday.

But she has yet to convince Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) and state Senate Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers) and their legislative supermajorities to go along.

The impasse with bail has blocked progress in budget talks on other issues such as funding for the MTA, affordable housing, and expanding charter schools in New York City.

“I’m here every day – not going anywhere – been here a long time,” Hochul said Thursday.

Her proposal would eliminate the “least restrictive” standard that some judges claim makes them release criminal defendants without bail even when the alleged crime might allow it.

But critics say her proposal would eviscerate a longstanding state law requiring the use of bail only to ensure someone returns to court while undermining progressive reforms passed in 2019.

“The governor is trying to do a wholesale undoing of everything we have fought for as New Yorkers,” Assemblywoman Latrice Walker (D-Brooklyn) thundered at a press conference near Rikers Island, which she toured earlier in the day alongside progressive colleagues.

The longtime champion of the controversial bail laws vowed to go on hunger strike starting on Easter Sunday unless the governor surrendered in the ongoing budget battle.

Assembly members colleagues Zohran Mamdani (D-Queens), Marcela Mitaynes (D-Brooklyn), Phara Souffrant Forrest (D-Brooklyn), Tony Simone (D-Manhattan) also attended alongside state Sens. Kristen Gonzalez (D-Queens), Nathalia Fernandez (D-Bronx) and Jabari Brisport (D-Brooklyn).

A hunger strike did not work last year when Walker unsuccessfully attempted to sway the “three people in a room” – Hochul, Heastie, and Stewart-Cousins – who craft the state budget to reject tweaks to cash bail laws that Hochul later touted on the campaign trail while running for a full term in office.

The governor has taken a harder line on public safety since winning the closest gubernatorial election in a generation only to face in budget talks a political left emboldened by the historic state Senate rejection of her nominee to lead New York’s highest court.

But she has stayed the course on bail thus far despite the pushback from the left.

“My top priority is public safety,” she said Thursday in a statement touting the arrest by state corrections officials of a Bronx man for alleged parole violations after a local judge released him without bail to the dismay of prosecutors.

The state budget process gives Hochul some extra leverage to hold out on state lawmakers as the three sides approach the April 10 expiration of a budget extender they passed in order to keep the state government running while negotiations continue following a counter-proposal from the Assembly days ago.

The governor could insert her bail proposal into a second extender, which the Democratic supermajorities could either approve or reject at the risk of being blamed for any ensuing state government shutdown.

Hochul has yet to confirm that she will play that type of hardball with Heastie and Stewart-Cousins as pressure from the political left grows on the legislative leaders.

“We’re asking our colleagues to hold strong,” Walker said Thursday. “We don’t have to do this.”

Both Heastie and Stewart-Cousins have noted that states with stricter bail laws have also seen crime increases while claiming available data does not justify blaming bail reform for any declines in public safety.

“We know that bail has really been defined everywhere. I mean people should know when bail is appropriate and when it isn’t. And so, no, I’m not interested in redefining bail,” Stewart-Cousins told reporters last week.

State numbers on rearrests show that a high percentage of criminal defendants have shown up to court since new limits on cash bail took effect at the beginning of 2020.

But even just 1 or 2 percent of defendants reoffending means thousands of cases statewide where someone might have committed a crime that would not have happened with looser rules in place on jailing people before their trials.

Lefty legislators on Thursday pointed to people suffering at the notorious Rikers Island while making their case against Hochul’s proposal.

Mamdani said he met New Yorkers there who, while officially innocent until proven guilty, are still doing without “basic dignities like toilet paper” in Rikers Island jails where 19 people died last year alone.

“Too often policy is debated in abstract. Let us be clear, Rikers Island is the Governor’s proposal brought to life,” Mamdani told The Post.

Hochul gave no sign of backing down Thursday despite the delayed budget while Heastie and Stewart-Cousins did the same ahead of expected rounds of talks in the coming days amid the Passover and Easter holidays.

Budget talks have occurred behind closed doors with few details on how the positions of the three leaders might be evolving as talks continue on bail.

“There’s a high level of respect and cordiality, which really allows us to focus on the issues and make progress,” Hochul said Wednesday while downplaying a budget battle with fellow Democrats that could stretch into the latter half of April or even beyond.

“It’s more important to get it right – and I’m committed to getting it right,” she said.