If that federal money is not forthcoming - and the latest signs from Congress were not encouraging - Rendell said Pennsylvania could be facing 20,000 or more layoffs.
He said that figure included not just state employees, but county and municipal workers as well as public school teachers.
Rendell called the scenario "Armageddon."
"At this point, we're having trouble making the cuts necessary to get agreement on our [$28.2 billion] budget - to put an additional $850 million in cuts is Armageddon," he said.
While the hoped-for $850 million figure seems a relatively small slice of a budget in the neighborhood of $28 billion, all involved in the negotiations agree that it is crucial. They point out that myriad cuts in spending have already been figured into the budget. To fill an additional $850 million gap, both Rendell and legislative leaders say, massive layoffs and reductions in state services would be necessary to make ends meet.
Late Thursday afternoon in Washington, the latest version of the federal funding measure - which Democrats have pared back to appease Republicans - did not get the votes needed to survive a GOP filibuster in the U.S. Senate.
Thirty states, including Pennsylvania, had been counting on the federal money to help balance budgets for the fiscal year beginning July 1. Without it, several governors have warned of layoffs in the tens of thousands.
Larry Smar, spokesman for U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, said Democrats were still intent on gaining GOP votes for the funding. "We're not going to give up on it," said Smar. "We're trying to find the magic key to the lock."
Prior to the vote, Rendell called the situation in Washington "crazier than Harrisburg."
He made the comments after emerging from a noon meeting with legislative leaders. The negotiators, he said, have been making progress, adding that the administration was now proposing spending slightly under $28.2 billion. His initial budget proposal in February was for $29 billion.
