Mortgages, groceries, utilities, day care, mounting credit card bills ... and a disappearing paycheck. What's a state employee to do?

"You just can't make any plans. You don't know when the next money's coming," Kathy Thompson of Greenfield lamented yesterday outside the State Office Building, Downtown, while on lunch break from her Department of Revenue job.

"You're stressed out. We're in there working. It's horrible."

Ms. Thompson, 57, is one of thousands of state workers affected by the budget battle in Harrisburg. Yesterday marked the first day they saw smaller paychecks as a result.

Even though the state treasury has money to pay Pennsylvania's employees, it is not authorized to do so for work done in the new fiscal year, which began July 1, without a new budget. Gov. Ed. Rendell said the state Constitution prohibits it.

Meanwhile, workers are negotiating with creditors for leniency and tapping banks that have offered no-interest or low-interest loans.

Just yesterday. Gov. Mr. Rendell sent a letter to the head of the Mortgage Bankers Association of Pennsylvania asking for affected state workers to be able to skip a mortgage payment, extend have extended grace periods or be bill billed only for interest.

"The mortgage industry has suffered a serious blow in public confidence and reputation over the last year. Your customers did not create the national recession, nor did they create the state deficit. But all of us bear the collective responsibility to help each other through it," the letter said.

That plea would be music to the ears of Denise Scolieri, 33, a Department of Health worker from Elizabeth Township. The mother of two has been pleading with creditors this week. Smaller credit card companies gave her an extra month to pay, she said. But she didn't find her mortgage company so sympathetic. "They don't understand," she said.

Ms. Scolieri said the bank told her it might waive a late fee on her next payment and followed up by explaining that such a courtesy is usually granted only a single time in the life of a mortgage. "Once in 30 years doesn't seem generous," she said.

David Fillman, executive director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 13, which represents about 45,000 state workers -- some of them the lowest-paid employees on the payroll at less than $20,000 a year -- called it a "dark day" in the state.

"The members are getting not only anxious but disgusted and angry because it's completely out of control," Mr. Fillman said.

State workers are paid every other week. Those who received a paycheck yesterday were paid for only 10 days of work, since the pay period includes the first three days of July.

If budget problems persist, the 50 percent of state workers who are paid next week will take home only two days' worth of pay -- for June 29 and 30 -- since the rest of their pay period falls in the new fiscal year. Then paychecks will shrink to nothing.

"Mine's next week, and I'll get two days' pay, and after that you have to take a loan out," said Gina Heim, 64, of Beechview. She works for the Department of Public Welfare. "You have to watch every penny you spend right now."

State Sen. John R. Gordner, R-Columbia, chairman of the Labor and Industry Committee, recommended that state employees who don't receive their pay file complaints with the federal Department of Labor.

Mr. Gordner contends that withholding pay from state workers constitutes a violation of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. In fact, he got up on the Senate floor Thursday to make his point and held up a sign with the labor department's phone number, repeating it several times as if he were in an infomercial.

The labor department confirmed that its offices in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Wilkes-Barre got several hundred e-mails and phone calls yesterday from state employees. The complaints will be handled by the department's wage and hour division.

"If workers work," Mr. Gordner said, "they need to be paid for their work promptly."