The U.S. Senate has passed an $838 billion economic stimulus package, but not before painful cuts that some Colorado lawmakers want restored before giving final approval.

Sens. Mark Udall and Michael Bennet, both Colorado Democrats, voted for the Senate version of the bill, which passed 61-37 Tuesday with three Republicans on the yes side.

While the package is technically larger than the $819 billion version passed in the House of Representatives, it has a smaller proportion of new spending to tax cuts.

To pare down the spending, Senate negotiators eliminated $16 billion worth of school construction funds, including $148.4 million of school modernization funds for Colorado and $52.9 million for higher education facilities in the state.

Senators also cut the state fiscal stabilization fund roughly in half - from $79 billion to $39 billion - and that would mean less money to aid cash-strapped state governments like Colorado's, where a budget crisis could cost widespread layoffs.

Under the Senate bill, Colorado's state government would get $487 million, down from $990 million in the House-passed version.

Several members of Colorado's House delegation said they were disappointed in the cuts to school construction and state government aid, and said they would advocate restoring the money when a House-Senate conference committee negotiates in the next several days.

"Gov. (Bill) Ritter has let us know that he certainly hopes that the money in the House version will make it to the state," said Rep. Jared Polis, D-Boulder. "I would hope our leadership will also stand firm and try to recover some of those funds to help Colorado prevent some of the drastic cuts it would have to make."

Preserving the school construction funding also was a top priority for Reps. Diana DeGette, Ed Perlmutter and Betsy Markey, all Democrats.

The aid to state governments, known as the "state fiscal stabilization funds," also was expected to be controversial. The nationwide figure was cut to about $39 billion from $79 billion in the Senate bill, as negotiators tried to reduce the size of the legislation and win just enough Republican support to get the required 60 votes to advance the legislation.

But the reduction doesn't appease some skeptics in the House, where not a single Republican voted for the legislation last week.

The Senate "did seem to cut down on some of the excesses on the spending side, but they still have way too much in terms of bailing out the states," said Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colorado Springs. "They still have far too little in terms of tax cuts."

Democrats called the aid to state governments critical, saying it could help prevent drastic job cuts in Colorado and elsewhere.

Udall, who joined Bennet in a bipartisan "Gang of 20" senators who negotiated the revised Senate version, said there's little room to maneuver to restore the reduced funds.

Some Republican senators who voted for the bill are philosophically opposed to using federal dollars instead of state dollars to build schools, and without their support a final bill might not pass the Senate, Udall said. He said some of the "state stabilization" funds could be restored, but only if House and Senate negotiators can find offsetting cuts.

"We have to keep faith with the Republican senators who joined in this bipartisan effort to pass it out of the Senate," Udall said. "The most important aspect was, we needed to act. The president has made that clear. Economists and people have made that clear, to get this economy back on its feet."

Bennet said he, too, would like to restore at least some of the school construction funds to the bill, although there are sure to be more compromises to advance the legislation.

"The House and Senate conferees are going to have to make compromises, and what I hope is they make compromises in the interests of the people of Colorado and in the interests of the country," Bennet said.