After their leaders outlined ambitious plans in January, Massachusetts lawmakers completed the first six months of the 2015-2016 session with one signature achievement – they passed a version of Governor Charlie Baker’s bill to balance the state budget they passed at this time a year ago.

On Wednesday, those same lawmakers awoke to a new fiscal year mindful that the only other major bill to clear either branch this session – the $38.1 billion fiscal 2016 budget – wasn’t ready on time, with disappointed negotiators saying they were still working on complex issues but declining to say what exactly is holding things up.

It could be controversial Senate tax law changes, MBTA reforms or one of the many special budget initiatives tucked into the massive bills following backroom talks. The people who know won’t talk about it, and everyone else doesn’t really know for sure.

The good news for Governor Charlie Baker is that he won’t have to spend the Fourth of July reviewing the sweeping budget bill. “I have no plans for the Fourth other than to hang out with my family,” Baker told WATD-FM this week. “This is one of the few weekends where we’re going to have all three of our kids around and I plan to do what I can to try to spend some time with them.” It’s the Legislature’s turn – or at least six members of the General Court – to spend the summer holiday trying to resolve differences in budgets that branch leaders have maintained all along are pretty similar. The bad news for Baker is that after this winter’s record snowfall diverted the governor’s focus and his administration’s momentum, the governor isn’t getting an on-time budget. While he’s upbeat about the odds for a budget deal next week, this year’s budget drama is proof that while Baker may have run the budget for former Governor William Weld and led a major health insurance company he’s not completely in charge in the shared leadership structure of state government.

To hear New England Public Radio’s Susan Kaplan’s conversation with Matt Murphy listen above.