Port Authority Chief Executive Officer Steve Bland returned from a lobbying visit to Harrisburg with no extra money and little hope of the state resolving a funding crisis in time to avert more bus-trolley cuts in September.

"I found more people talking about the issue, but the prognosis is not real good," he said after yesterday's monthly board meeting. "Nobody gave us cause for optimism that there will be a solution soon and certainly not by June."

Mr. Bland spent Tuesday at the capital meeting with key House and Senate members from across the state and with local lawmakers from both parties.

An initial round of 15 percent in service cuts, including the elimination of 29 bus routes, goes into effect June 17 as part of reducing an estimated $80 million budget deficit by $35 million for the 2007-08 fiscal year that begins July 1.

But June is important for another reason.

If no extra operating assistance appears forthcoming from the state -- or the county -- by then, the authority will start implementing the 10 percent of additional bus-trolley cuts threatened in January. They would go into effect Sept. 2.

Although the second round of cuts would wipe out the remaining $45 million budget deficit, it would be more far-reaching, eliminating up to 95 routes spared in the first round. Mr. Bland has characterized it as cutting into the "meat and bones" of the system.

"A lot of people still have the false hope that money will fall out of the sky," he said. "My focus has moved to September" to make the fewest possible number of cuts and impact the fewest number of riders and employees.

During his trip, Mr. Bland did not meet with Gov. Ed Rendell, whose proposal to tax corporate profits of oil companies to raise money for transit appears politically dead.

Nonetheless, the heat is being turned up in Harrisburg because the Philadelphia-based Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority is facing a $129 million budget deficit, 50-cent fare increases, 20 percent service cuts, employee layoffs and the loss of 40 million rides a year.

Last week, the Port Authority announced the layoff of 267 employees -- 251 union and 16 nonunion workers -- over the last two weeks of June.

Yesterday, the board approved $13,000 one-time cash payments as an incentive for up to 228 of the older union workers to retire.

The deal is being offered on a first-come basis to 138 bus-trolley operators, 79 maintenance workers and 11 first-level supervisors who belong to Local 85, Amalgamated Transit Union.

Even by paying $13,000 to retiring hourly workers, the authority would save up to $6,000 a year for each worker in the first year alone inasmuch as that person would be replaced by a newer employee lower on the pay scale. New hires receive 60 percent of regular pay and take four years to reach full union scale.

Also, the more employees who take up the offer will reduce the number of union colleagues slated to be laid off.

The offer is being extended to full-time hourly and salaried, first-level supervisors meeting minimum normal retirement eligibility that includes 25 years of service, age 65 with 10 years, and a combination of service and age totaling 85 "points."

Also yesterday, the authority board authorized spending the remaining $2.5 million from a 2004 debt refinancing deal to leverage an additional $7.5 million in state operating subsidies. The state provides $3 for every $1 of local matching money, typically provided entirely by the county but using the special fund as one-time help this year.

But because there's still a shortfall of "local" money, the authority is unable to lay claim to another $585,586 in state subsidies and is, in essence, losing it.

And members of "The Campaign to Stop the Bus Cuts" delivered petitions bearing 20,000 signatures to County Executive Dan Onorato's office, asking him to order the Port Authority to open its books "so the public can see how much state money is needed to stop the proposed cuts."