Those who depend on funding from state government, from teachers and parents to health advocates and nonprofit workers, will watch anxiously over the next two weeks as the Joint Finance Committee begins chopping hundreds of millions of dollars from the Delaware budget.

Everyone has known for months that cuts were coming — the state is in a fiscal hole of about $400 million — but there has not yet been a specific plan for who is losing money.

Now the 12 legislators who sit on JFC are going to lay out exactly who loses how much.

THE LATEST ON THE BUDGET::Read about the deal to hike corporate franchise taxes

"All the decisions we're going to have to make are ones that have been researched, discussed and in many cases agonized over, and in no way do we make any of the cuts we're going to have to make lightly," said Rep. Melanie George Smith, D-Bear, the committee's chair. "In many ways, it's going to pain us very, very much to do so. But ultimately, people of Delaware are counting on us to have a responsible, balanced budget."

The plan JFC makes is not final; both chambers of the General Assembly must approve it, and Gov. John Carney must sign it. But the final budget is usually the same as the one JFC recommends.

JFC begins its work with some uncertainty remaining about exactly how much needs to be cut.

In March, Carney laid out his own vision for the budget. His plan was to patch half the gap with tax increases and other revenue and the other half with cuts.

But Democratic and Republican legislative leaders have only reached an agreement on about $100 million in new revenue, thanks to a deal that would hike the corporate franchise tax but repeal the estate tax. That deal hasn't passed the Senate but is expected to pass, so the JFC is counting on that money for now.

However, there is no agreement yet on other tax increases, like income or tobacco taxes. If no agreement is reached, that means JFC would need to find nearly $300 million in cuts, a bigger slice than the almost $200 million Carney proposed.

"It is our intention to have a balanced budget by the time we're finished," Smith said. "Unless we get any other word that a deal has been reached, we're going to cut what we need to cut."

JFC has had to cut spending in previous years, but several members said Friday they've rarely had this big a mountain to climb.

"I would say this is the worst year I've seen since I've been [on the committee]," said Rep. J.J. Johnson, who has been on JFC since 2009. "It's really distressing, personally."

Even in the economic wreckage of the 2008 financial crisis, the blow was softened by federal stimulus money, Johnson said. But today, state officials are at best hoping President Donald Trump's administration won't make their problems worse.

The grueling, days-long markup meetings JFC will hold over the next two weeks will be closely watched by many, particularly those in state government.

School boards and parents hope legislators won't go forward with Carney's plan to cut $37 million from school districts, allowing districts to make up part of the cuts by unilaterally raising taxes. But education eats up about a third of the budget, so avoiding any cuts to schools would lead to dramatic cuts elsewhere.

Both Carney and his predecessor, Gov. Jack Markell, called for state employees to pay a larger share of their health care costs. Legislators have previously resisted such a change, but health care costs keep soaring every year.

And employees at the state correctional facilities are still clamoring for more resources after a correctional officer at James T. Vaughn Correctional Institution was killed in an inmate uprising in February.

It isn't just government agencies that are nervous.

"There's a lot of stress," said Sheila Bravo, executive director of the Delaware Alliance for Nonprofit Advancement. "These are big decisions, and it feels like a short period of time to make them."

Many of Delaware's nonprofits rely on state funds to do everything from find housing for the homeless to battle the heroin epidemic to help at-risk kids graduate from school, Bravo said. When the state cuts funding, it means those nonprofits lose employees and are able to provide less of those important services.

"A lot of the basic services we want in Delaware, tackling a lot of the challenges we're facing in Delaware, nonprofits are the ones that are providing those services," Bravo said. "When they lose their funding, people lose their jobs. They have to stop providing those services Delawareans count on."

Contact Matthew Albright at malbright@delawareonline.com, (302) 324-2428 or on Twitter @TNJ_malbright.

Who sits on the Joint Finance Committee?

Chairman: Rep. Melanie George Smith (D)

Co-Chair: Sen. Harris B. McDowell (D)

Democrats

Sen. Brian Bushweller

Sen. Bruce Ennis

Sen. Nicole Poore

Rep. J. J. Johnson

Rep. Debra Heffernan

Rep. William Carson

Republicans