Ellen Shapiro, a home health care worker, makes two to three home visits a day.

A case manager for Lifespan Inc., of Homestead, which has a contract with the Allegheny County Area Agency on Aging, she spends her days helping elderly people who live alone prepare meals, bathe and keep track of their medication.

But if Gov. Ed Rendell and state legislators, who have been locked in a months-long stalemate over the 2009-10 budget, continue the impasse much longer, Ms. Shapiro, 47, who manages a case load of about 60 seniors, fears that she will lose her job.

"If they can't pass a budget, I am going to lose my job at the end of the month," Ms. Shapiro said. "And then who is going do what I do?"

Lifespan, she said, recently notified its employees that unless a budget is reached by September, the company most likely will lay off as many as half of its case workers.

Mr. Rendell yesterday signed a partial budget, which calls for $11 billion in spending for government functions like paying about 77,000 state workers who have gone without paychecks in recent weeks.

Mr. Rendell then vetoed $13 billion in proposed spending, most of it including money for state-owned colleges, community colleges, human services, libraries and the state Legislature itself.

And now, human services providers and state agencies contend that unless Harrisburg moves to hammer out a budget deal soon, they will be forced into making some tough choices -- most likely drastic cuts in staff and services.

"It's a disaster in the making," said Marc Cherna, director of the Allegheny County Department of Human Services. Without a budget, Mr. Cherna said, the department will not be able to pay the 400 agencies that contract with the county to provide a number of services, from housing for the homeless to child protection and mental health services.

"We normally pay out July's bills in August. But this time, we're not going to be able to pay out about $30 million to our contractors," said Mr. Cherna. The department, he added, serves about 230,000 people in Allegheny County.

Adrienne Walnoha, executive director of Community Human Services Corp., an Oakland-based organization that provides a range of services for the homeless and working poor, said a budget delay is just as bad as a cut in funding.

"It's a terrifying proposition because we're already struggling. A delay in state funding is especially hard because we can't even project and account for budget cuts because we don't know what will happen," said Ms. Walnoha.

Among the line-item vetoes in the budget Mr. Rendell signed yesterday were $25.6 million in homeless assistance funding and $357.9 million in child-care assistance and services.

"At this moment, child care and early learning programs that are proven, research-based, and keep families working, are left in limbo ... if we don't get a final budget that funds programs like Child Care Works, Pre-K Counts and Head Start," said Terry Casey, president of Pennsylvania Child Care Association.

"While we wait for the budget to pass, programs of all kinds will be hurting," he added.

Keith New, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, said unless the Legislature passes a budget soon, the agency may not be able to award education grants to need-based applicants until late in the school year.

"We can't disburse funds until they are approved and released to us, and right now we don't know when that will happen," said Mr. New.

PHEAA, he said, makes an average award of $2,738 and a maximum of $4,120 to college students every year -- at the end of August. Yesterday, Mr. Rendell vetoed the agency's line-item allocation of $386.2 million

If a budget is not settled by month's end, he said, "many schools are going to have to make some sort of decision of how they will handle students who depend on us."