Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus said lawmakers may have to agree to an extension of a payroll tax cut for workers that falls short of a full year if they can’t reach a deal on covering the measure’s cost, Bloomberg reported.

“If we cannot agree on the pay-for, we might have to look to other options for the payroll tax,” such as not extending the tax cut “for the full time,” Baucus said today at a conference committee meeting in Washington, D.C.

House and Senate negotiators are seeking to extend the 2-percentage point reduction in the payroll tax for workers through 2012, which would cost the Treasury about $100 billion. Lawmakers in December passed a two-month extension of the tax cut, which expires Feb. 29, because they couldn’t agree on how to finance a longer continuation.

At the second public meeting of the conference committee appointed to seek agreement on a yearlong extension, lawmakers remained far apart on how and whether to cover the full cost of the measure. Panel chairman Representative Dave Camp, a Michigan Republican, said after the meeting that Baucus’s comments sounded a “cautionary note.”

“We may not be able to do all we want to do if we can’t find agreement on pay-fors,” Camp told reporters. “It was an important cautionary note. I certainly agree with it.”

Baucus would only consider shaving off a short amount of time if lawmakers can’t agree on a plan to carry the tax cut through the end of 2012, said his spokesman, Scott Mulhauser.

During today’s meeting, Camp pressed colleagues to discuss later how to pay for the extension.

“The faster we can move through the policies, the more quickly we can move to the question of pay-fors,” Camp said.

Democratic lawmakers criticized that request. Representative Sander Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, said policy discussions can’t be split from the debate over financing the extension.