INDIANAPOLIS -- Sniping between parties took center stage at the Statehouse on Friday after plans to wrap up work for the year and leave early collapsed late Thursday night.

Lawmakers will return next week instead of ending their work early after deals on issues including school funding, third-grade reading, unemployment insurance taxes and jobs were left undecided, 6News' Norman Cox reported.

The mudslinging on Friday revolved around Sen. Brandt Hershman, R-Monticello, the chief Republican negotiator on the bill to delay the unemployment tax increase on businesses and provide incentives for new jobs.

On Thursday night, Hershman, who's running for Congress, left for several hours to attend a political dinner in Boone County, which House Speaker Pat Bauer said caused the negotiations to collapse.

"You can't really negotiate a bill when their point man, their chairman of the conference committee, their author of the bill, and, I have to say, their expert, is gone," said Bauer, D-South Bend.

But Senate Republican leaders said that isn't how it went down, stopping just short of calling Bauer a liar.

"I want to say that every year we see some type of antics from Speaker Bauer, blaming one person or another for why things don't get passed in the Legislature," said Sen. David Long, R-President Pro Tem.

Hershman said he offered to stay, but was told the Democrats needed a break to study the most recent Republican offer, and that he could go to the dinner.

"What happened was a House Democrat political stunt," Hershman said. "I'm very disappointed in the Speaker."

Gov. Mitch Daniels has refrained from talking much about Bauer this session to avoid angering him and endangering passage of the governor's bills, but on Thursday he broke his silence, accusing House Democrats of walking off the job.

"We saw a familiar pattern. One side, the House, saying, 'No and no and no.' Everything has to be their own way," he said. "The House is planning to overcharge the taxpayers of this state. They need to help us save money."

Although most House members went home on Friday, the Senate was in session. Leaders said they will be around to negotiate on Monday.

Bauer said House negotiators would be ready to talk then, too.

Leaders said the unemployment tax and jobs bill that caused the current ruckus could survive, along with the third-grade reading bill.

But the governor's efficiency bills, especially the merger of the two big retirement funds, are in trouble, and sources said there is no way to save the township government reorganization bill.