HARRISBURG — Weekly movie nights for Yvette Sivels and the two grandchildren she is raising might be less exciting now that the state has reduced Supplemental Security Income checks.

Sivels, 52, found out in recent days the monthly checks coming from the state will be about $10 less because the state budget Gov. Ed Rendell signed in October cut spending by nearly 2 percent.

That means the South Philadelphia household will have to live on about $1,440, most of which comes from the federal share of SSI and Social Security.

"I don't know how this is going to work into my budget," she said in a telephone interview. "We'll figure it out. It will be a little harder, but we'll figure it out."

Rendell signed the state budget Oct. 9 — 101 days late because of a protracted stalemate that divided Republicans and Democrats over how to fill a multibillion-dollar, recession-driven shortfall.

They cut about $520 million from hundreds of programs. That included a $12 million reduction — about 7 percent — in the state's SSI program, which helps 340,000 of its poorest residents who are elderly or disabled, according to the Rendell administration.

The cuts work out to $5.30 a month less for most single people and $10.40 a month for most couples.

"It doesn't sound like a lot to so many of us, but when you have folks who are trying to exist on incomes below the poverty level, reducing their supplement, it's going to make a difference to them," said Ray Landis of the AARP.

The state's share of the SSI payments is now as low as federal law allows — $22.10 a month for an individual, and $33.30 for a couple.

There is no apparent movement in the Legislature to restore the money anytime soon, and Rendell is not planning to shift money from elsewhere in the budget.

"That was one of the (programs) that emerged from negotiations with less money and one example of the governor pointing out that many, many programs were going to suffer without additional revenues," said Rendell's press secretary, Gary Tuma.

Revenues continue to lag behind expectations, forcing the governor to cut more spending in this fiscal year to offset the shortfall.

Still, the state is sitting on money.

For example, legislators continue to submit requests for millions of dollars in discretionary money set aside for their pet causes. And the Legislature maintains a reserve account that is expected to hold well north of $150 million when the fiscal year ends June 30.

The SSI reduction went unnoticed by advocates for the poor and elderly until mid-January, when the Department of Public Welfare announced in the Pennsylvania Bulletin how it would carry out the reduction.

Recently, Sivels received a letter from the state telling her as much. It didn't seem fair to her that she had a week to plan for the reduction.

In a normal month, she spends $695 on rent and $156 for two transit passes, one for herself and one for granddaughter Kayla, 8. Then there's the utility bills. After all that, there's a few hundred left for everything else, plus food stamps and Medicaid.

"I make everything stretch," she said.

Her household gets two checks from SSI — one for grandson Symir, one for Sivels. She is on medicine for depression and diabetes and does not work, and Symir, 7, is developmentally disabled.

Both children also get a little bit of money from Social Security as a survivors' benefit from the death of their mother in 2002, when Symir was born.