HARRISBURG -- With the revenue shortfall getting worse each month, Gov. Ed Rendell says he has no choice but to chop an additional $128 million from the state's 2008-09 budget.

That will bring to $439 million the total of spending reductions Mr. Rendell has ordered in the past three months, as sales, income and corporate tax receipts continue to come in below the estimates made in July, when the spending plan was adopted.

One cut announced yesterday will eliminate pay raises of 2.25 percent that had been set for 13,000 managers and other nonunion state employees on Jan. 1.

Employees in the public welfare, transportation, corrections, environmental protection and other departments will be affected. Total savings will be $14.3 million, with the average employee losing a raise of $1,800.

Mr. Rendell, a Democrat and former mayor of Philadelphia, said he may ask state unions in January to reopen their current four-year contracts as a way to seek additional savings.

He said he'll "ask" 51 employees in his executive branch of government, including Cabinet secretaries, to give up the 2.8 percent cost-of-living adjustments they are set to get Jan. 1. The governor said he will forgo the bump that would have raised his salary from $170,000 to almost $175,000 a year.

Senate President Pro Tem Joe Scarnati, a conservative Republican from rural Jefferson County, said he'll also skip his COLA.

He quipped at a news conference, "I applaud the governor's conservative Republican philosophy in cutting costs. [Senate Republicans] have been screaming that around these halls for the last couple years."

Mr. Scarnati was sworn in yesterday as the new lieutenant governor, at $141,000.

Mr. Rendell's previous belt-tightening steps included a hiring freeze and a ban on out-of-state travel. The new House majority leader, Rep. Todd Eachus, D-Luzerne, said yesterday he's also banning most travel for House employees to save money.

For the first five months of the current fiscal year (July-November), the state is $658 million below its original 2008-09 revenue estimates, as the ongoing national recession takes away jobs and keeps people from spending as much as they might normally. Mr. Rendell has said the deficit could be as large as $1 billion to $2 billion by the end of the fiscal year on June 30.

He said the state's $750 million Rainy Day Fund, set aside for emergencies, can be tapped to help erase the deficit. But he said he doesn't want to use it all because the state's budget woes are expected to continue into the 2009-10 fiscal year, which begins July 1.

He said he hopes to avoid any broad-based tax increases, including the sales tax and personal income tax, but thinks the state should impose a tax on cigars and smokeless tobacco. He said Pennsylvania is the only state that currently doesn't have such a tax.

"We'd be crazy not to tax smokeless tobacco,'' he said. It would raise $60 million or $70 million, he said, and "that would help."

Meanwhile, the state's budget plight is causing more General Assembly leaders to reject the cost-of-living adjustments that they received Monday. The four top House Democrats -- Speaker Keith McCall of Carbon, Mr. Eachus, Majority Whip Bill DeWeese of Waynesburg and Appropriations Chairman Dwight Evans of Philadelphia -- agreed to forgo their 2.8 percent COLAs.

Mr. Eachus urged other House Democrats to do the same. Yesterday, Reps. Matt Smith of Mt. Lebanon, John Pallone of New Kensington and Tim Solobay of Canonsburg said they won't take the increases.

Also, six top Senate Republican leaders, including Mr. Scarnati, Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi of Delaware and GOP Whip Jane Orie of McCandless, said they will return their COLAs to the state treasury.

Under a 1995 law, cost-of-living adjustments are provided every Dec. 1 to the 253 legislators, more than 1,000 state judges and about 50 executive branch members. If every COLA were accepted, it would cost the state about $4.5 million.

"Everything is on the table in terms of spending cuts as we address the state budget deficit," Mr. Scarnati said.

He acknowledged that giving up COLAs was "a symbolic gesture," though still important.

But he added, "We will not balance this budget with symbolism. It will take real cuts."

He said he wants to work with Mr. Rendell on the specifics of programs to be reduced or eliminated.

Mr. Scarnati and Mr. Eachus said they weren't ready to take a position on an upcoming bill by Rep. Barbara McIlvaine Smith, D-Chester, to permanently repeal the 1995 law that enacted the COLAs. State Auditor General Jack Wagner urged the Legislature to put a moratorium on COLAs for the next two years.

To save money, Mr. Scarnati said his Senate staff will do most of the work done by the staff of the late Lt. Gov. Catherine Baker Knoll.

Mrs. Knoll's office was budgeted at $1.6 million this year. He said he would give her employees a few weeks to find alternate employment.

Mr. Scarnati said he has a bill to take away state jobless benefits from illegal immigrants, which he claimed could save $300,000. He said the Senate approved the bill but the Democratic-controlled House didn't act on it.

Senate GOP leaders also renewed their previous call for a $75 million reduction in the General Assembly "budget reserve account," which a year ago stood at $241 million and is almost certainly more now. It consists of money not spent in any given year from the Legislature's $330 million kitty for salaries, office costs and other expenses of the four legislative caucuses.