HARRISBURG -- State lawmakers are willing to help with Pittsburgh's financial recovery, but they've got to deal with their own money problems first.

That's was the message Mayor Luke Ravenstahl got from southwestern lawmakers who met with him between voting sessions yesterday in the Capitol.

"Their No. 1 focus right now is on the state budget, but we want them to understand exactly the help the city is going to need," Mr. Ravenstahl said in an interview after a series of meetings with individual and small groups of lawmakers. "If we don't get assistance from Harrisburg, there will be some ugly choices," such as placing surcharges on hospital admissions, undergraduate students, all-day parkers and nonprofit water users.

Mr. Ravenstahl said he would rather expand the business payroll tax to include nonprofit institutions or increase the $52 a year tax on everyone who works within city limits to $145. Both would require legislative approval.

The payroll tax proposal had more support from Pittsburgh lawmakers yesterday, Mr. Ravenstahl said.

"If you were handicapping the two, that's the one that was better received," he said.

State Rep. Dan Frankel, D-Squirrel Hill, said neither is likely to come to a vote any time soon.

"I don't think there's a consensus as to what specific remedies the city ought to pursue and what my colleagues would agree to," he said. "The city is coming to us at a time when we're dealing with our own [budgetary] crisis, and that has all of our attention right now."

He predicted that for any solution to pass, it would have to apply to the whole state.

"You can't just do something surgically for the city of Pittsburgh," he said. "To get consensus and to get the votes we need, it would have to be a broad piece of legislation that would help every city in Pennsylvania."