TALLAHASSEE -- Teachers are digging into their own pockets for school supplies. Identity-theft investigations are slowing down. And thousands of nursing-home workers are bracing for layoffs.

The stories about the effects of state's widespread budget cuts have swamped lawmakers during the two-week special-legislative session to fill the state's $2.4 billion budget hole. And as the Republican-led Legislature pushes forward with plans to trim nearly $1 billion in spending, fears and political posturing are on the rise.

Lawmakers will continue their march Wednesday toward state budget cuts. Nearly half of the budget-cut money comes from schools. Democrats are loudly protesting the cuts along with advocates, lobbyists, union members, teachers and state workers.

On Tuesday, Democrats opposed a Republican House education bill that cut $365 million from schools. The bill, which passed a House committee 5-3, also requires school employees to shoulder pay cuts if their district is declared to be in a financial emergency -- a provision that directly affects troubled Miami-Dade County.

Even Republican Gov. Charlie Crist is getting worried about the size of the Legislature's proposed reductions. Crist said Tuesday that legislators should cut less and borrow more money from reserves.

''One of the concerns that I have is that we make these reductions without hurting the end user: the student. So we're watching closely,'' Crist told reporters.

Legislators said they have no choice but to cut $365 million in K-12 education money, and about $100 million more in nonclassroom areas -- such as from school transportation, instructional materials and virtual school enrollment.

The classroom hit to Miami-Dade and Broward: $48 million and $36 million, respectively. Miami-Dade could lose up to $1.5 million of a $7 million cost-of-living expense paid by the Legislature.

Those numbers aren't a big surprise to the school districts. They were told to brace for these cuts after Crist ordered state agencies to withhold about 4 percent of their budgets last summer.

Now the Legislature plans to ratify Crist's budget hold-backs -- worth about $600 million -- and increase them by about $400 million. Advocates say Floridians are starting to feel the effect of the budget cuts. Lawmakers are eliminating hundreds of vacant positions, and might lay off at least a handful of workers.

LAW ENFORCEMENT

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is facing cuts of 85 positions, including 79 vacant jobs and six employees. But even just the vacancies have been giving the agency headaches.

Telly Sands, a special agent in Tampa who works economic crimes like identity theft, said her department is already feeling the crunch.

With the 4 percent holdback, the department stopped replacing retiring investigators. That means Sands has to either turn away cases or take a lot longer to investigate some cases. And in the case of identity theft, a delay costs big money, said Sands, who is also president of the FDLE Agents Association.

''For every day that goes by and that person isn't taken off the street you're looking at thousands and thousands of dollars in loss to retailers or to victims,'' Sands said.

``Being able to have the manpower to work these cases, that's the ballgame right there. That's what we, at FDLE, have to make sure we have. And we're losing that. We need quality investigators to work these types of cases.''

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