The deadline was June 30<\/a>, and the first week without a budget ended with no reliable public indication when political leaders would finish the job. The key players in the behind-closed-doors negotiations each gave their own version of an update when asked for one.<\/p>\nA spokesperson for Senate Republican Majority Leader Joe Pittman of Indiana County said the work was continuing and that the Senate – which left Harrisburg a week ago – would not return before Thursday afternoon. At the same time, there was no guarantee members would return this week at all.<\/p>\n
Democrats who control the House and the governor’s office lambasted the departure of the Republican-led Senate after its June 30 session day.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro referred to a statement he issued previously that noted Shapiro made his original budget proposal in February. “They [Senate Republicans] should be here and they should be working. We should work through this and finish the job together, and instead, they ran away,\u201d the governor said.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for House Democrats referred to statements made by top Democrats last week when the Senate left town. Rep. Matt Bradford of Montgomery County, the House majority leader, said at the time it was \u201cfrustrating beyond belief\u201d that \u201cthe Senate is throwing in the towel already.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the 135-day period last year when billions of dollars in state funding was withheld, schools cut programs, nonprofits furloughed workers, and counties lost millions of dollars. Those losses occurred via counties’ being forced to borrow money, and by counties losing significant interest income on reserve money they had to spend, rather than save.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are all disappointed that this has happened again,” said Kyle Kopko, executive director of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania. “Everyone is shell-shocked from what happened last year.”<\/p>\n
This is the fifth year in a row the state’s political leaders have failed to meet the June 30 budget deadline. Kopko noted that 25 or 30 years ago, there were a number of years when the main budget bill was approved many weeks before the deadline.<\/p>\n
Referring to last summer and fall, Kopko said, “Nobody wants to see anything like that happen again.”<\/p>\n
Unlike state workers and legislators who continue to receive pay regardless of budget outcomes, many nonprofits rely on state funding and grants to continue operations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cEighty-five percent of our public libraries in Pennsylvania are nonprofit charitable organizations,\u201d said Christi Buker, the executive director of the Pennsylvania Library Association. \u201cThe state aid to public libraries represents a very stable source of revenue. And when it is delayed, it really creates uncertainty.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The effects of an impasse on public education can include cuts, paused programs, and delays in hiring new staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen budgets are late, districts cannot fully rely on that funding when it matters most,\u201d said Kevin Busher, Pennsylvania’s School Boards Association chief advocacy officer. \u201cSome are forced to borrow, tap into limited reserves or postpone important investments like facility upgrades.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
While public schools received increased funding in recent years, libraries across the state have not received any such increase since 2001. With today’s prices 1.89 times higher than they were 25 years ago, current state grants for libraries do not even cover inflation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cLibraries do run on very lean margins, and we have been working for many years to get our funding for the public library subsidy,\u201d said Buker. \u201cOur expenses have continued to increase year over year, and level funding doesn’t help us meet those increasing expenses.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meeting inflation and the higher costs of living, however, continues to be a priority in Harrisburg. At least, that is, for Pennsylvania legislators who have continued to enjoy automatic raises every year since 1995.<\/p>\n
All of them make more than $113,000 a year and have access to a generous benefits package. Lawmakers in Pennsylvania are the third highest paid state legislators in the country despite their failure to pass the budget on time.<\/p>\n
Some in their ranks recognize a discrepancy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we\u2019re not doing our job, we shouldn\u2019t be getting paid,\u201d said Republican Rep. Jeremy Shaffer from Allegheny County. \u201cI think that it is a modest step that we shouldn’t get an automatic pay raise every year if we can’t do our job.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shaffer is the prime sponsor of a bill removing the automatic raise for state legislators<\/a>, however the bill, introduced in September, has yet to make it past the House.\u00a0<\/p>\nFor nonprofits providing care for victims of abuse, the \u2018struggle\u2019 is always present, and an unpassed budget affects more than just their employees.<\/p>\n
\u201cSurvivors matter,\u201d Zaccarelli said. \u201cPlease pass the budget.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(The Center Square) – It’s been a week since the deadline for a state budget passed, and public…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233244,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[61,28,30,29],"class_list":["post-237969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-economy","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}