Rendell says Pa. escaped disaster
HARRISBURG - The dust had not yet settled on the federal stimulus debate when Gov. Rendell said yesterday that Pennsylvania had escaped disaster.
HARRISBURG - The dust had not yet settled on the federal stimulus debate when Gov. Rendell said yesterday that Pennsylvania had escaped disaster.
In fact, Rendell said, the state will get almost the full $5 billion he was seeking in budget aid over three years.
"No major damage was done to us," Rendell told reporters in an early- evening conference call. "It's almost a wash."
The House of Representatives could vote on the bill as early as today.
Details of the package worked out by the House and the Senate were trickling out when Rendell said that despite reductions in state discretionary funding, Pennsylvania was able to salvage money from elsewhere in the stimulus package to fill the gaps.
Rendell, who is relying on an infusion of federal money to balance the state budget, warned this week that if Congress approved the Senate's pared-down version of the stimulus package, Pennsylvanians should be prepared for severe pain from state budget cuts.
In the end, discretionary funding for governors to plug budget holes was reduced from $79 billion in the House bill to $39 billion, the amount contained in the Senate version.
But Rendell said that by drawing $600 million over two years from the stimulus package's school-district funding, the state would be able to meet its budget estimates without hurting Pennsylvania school districts.
"I thought what we got in House bill was very generous and helpful," he said. "But we roughed out with essentially the same as the House bill."
As a result, Rendell said, he will not have to make the additional 1,500 job cuts and even deeper agency funding reductions that he had predicted under the original Senate bill earlier this week.
Still, Rendell said, "it doesn't avoid us from having to do tough things," such as the cuts he outlined during his budget address last week.
In his proposed spending plan for the 2009-10 fiscal year, Rendell called for eliminating 101 programs and reducing funding for hundreds more.
Among the major federal funding commitments for Pennsylvania under the stimulus package: State Medicaid programs will receive $4 billion over three years, $1.5 billion will go directly to school districts, $1.3 billion will go for roads and bridges, and public transit will get $400 million.
Rendell said work could begin on hundreds of "shovel-ready" road projects across the state as early as April.
It was unclear how much Philadelphia would receive, but Rendell said the city would likely get $40 million to $50 million in community development block grants and a fairly large proportion of the state transit and education funding.
"The city did well, perhaps not as well as Mayor Nutter would have liked," Rendell said.
Pennsylvania child advocate Cathleen Palm said she was pleased that most of the social service safety net - including health care, child care, food stamps and Head Start - either remained intact or was increased in the final stimulus legislation.
Rendell said that for Pennsylvania, the package would mean billions in new investment, creation or preservation of more than 100,000 jobs, and tax credits to millions of residents.
"On balance, the relief that goes to citizens, the jobs created, the amount put into the economy, I'd give it a B-plus," he said.
"Could it have been better? Yes."
