Nutter visited many local legislators' offices during his tour of the Capitol. Without state approval of these budget measures, he says, the city will be forced to make drastic cuts to services and jobs.

Still, a Daily News straw poll of the city's Harrisburg delegation shows that many local members are wavering on the sales-tax increase. We reached out to the 33 Philly members of the state House of Representatives and state Senate with this question:

If a vote were held today on Philadelphia's temporary sales-tax increase, would you be a yes, no or undecided?

A total of 18 responded - 7 said yes, 2 no and 7 were undecided. State Sen. Vincent Hughes said that he was "leaning yes" and state Rep. Kenyatta Johnson declined to comment.

Those in favor largely said that they would vote yes because the alternative was so much worse.

"The mayor says he needs it," said Rep. Ronald G. Waters. "If we don't do it, I'm afraid of what that means."

Rep. Mike O'Brien, who is opposed, said that he'd prefer to see the city use gaming revenues to plug the budget gap. Though the city has said that this isn't an option, O'Brien said that he wasn't convinced.

And the undecideds said that they are still mulling over the options - stressing that this is a complicated time in Harrisburg.

"I think it would depend on what the overall situation is in terms of our budget," said Rep. John Taylor, who added that he wasn't sure that the proposal to raise the sales tax had the votes. "Right now, if it came up today, it probably wouldn't be passed."

Despite the mixed results, Nutter said that he felt good about his talks with the Philly delegations so far.

"Philadelphia's temporary sales tax is just a part of a larger, more complicated budget discussion," Nutter said. "I think it's clear that there are active and in-depth conversations going on."

The city's $3.8 billion plan was approved in May by the mayor and City Council. Without approval for the sales-tax hike and the pension changes, the city will be short $700 million over the next five years.

Officials have been preparing a doomsday budget, which would include massive layoffs and service cuts. Just how soon that could happen is not exactly clear, but the city is counting on getting the sales-tax revenue starting Aug. 1.

But, with Gov. Rendell and Republican lawmakers fighting over how to close the state's $3.2 billion budget deficit, it's anyone's guess when Philly's budget requests will be considered.

Hughes said that it could be a while.

"The state's budget problem is the big elephant in the room of the city's budget resolve," Hughes said. "Right now, Republican senators are not talking about any kind of tax increases anywhere. We could be out for a long time to get this thing resolved."

Nearly half the Philadelphia delegation did not respond to our request for comment, despite repeated calls over the past three business days.

The silent state senators were Christine Tartaglione, Shirley Kitchen, Leanna Washington and Anthony Hardy Williams. And the unresponsive state representatives were Angel Cruz, Frank Oliver, Dennis O'Brien, William Keller, John Perzel, Robert Donatucci, Cherelle Parker, Michael McGeehan, John Sabatina Jr., Vanessa Brown and Louise Williams Bishop. *