Service agencies fear Pa. crisis

HARRISBURG - With no end in sight to Pennsylvania's budget talks, legislation could reach the governor's desk early this week to authorize roughly $4 billion in temporary spending to pay government workers and cover "essential government operations."

That would leave the rest of the state budget, an estimated $24 billion to $25 billion, in limbo and many of those dependent on it in a panic.

Some of the larger recipients of state money - school districts, hospitals, and wealthy counties, for example - might have reserves or alternative funding to tide them over for a short time. But there's no pending relief for thousands of nonprofit groups and small businesses that rely on state support.

Consider Youth Service Inc. in Philadelphia, which runs a homeless shelter for teens and a crisis day-care service where single mothers can take their children while they go to court or medical appointments.

Or Gannondale, a private residential center in Erie that treats adolescent girls - some of them violent - from as far away as Philadelphia.

Neither organization knows when its next state payment will arrive or how it will pay staff or vendors in the coming weeks.

"Since the budget impasse, all of the counties have been telling us they cannot pay us, but asking, 'Can you keep the kids in care without pay?' " said Nancy Sabol, Gannondale's executive director.

That scenario is playing out across the state at thousands of agencies and businesses that provide a wide range of services for families and the elderly. Most of their clients are low income or in crisis, and the services include health care, counseling, and emergency shelter and transportation.

Providers believe such assistance could mean the difference between life and death in many cases.

"These agencies provide mandated services for abused and neglected children and children in foster care," said Bernadette Bianchi, executive director of the Pennsylvania Council of Children, Youth and Family Services. "The situation is truly at crisis proportions."

Gwen Bailey, executive director of Youth Service, said her organization often is the only safe harbor for people who might otherwise be homeless, and in some cases is the only shelter for children whose parents are on the streets.

"For me, an emergency service is anyplace children can go when they have no place to go," Bailey said. "If we had to shut down, they'd be on the street."

Doug Hill, executive director of the Pennsylvania Association of Counties, asked the Rendell administration whether such services would be spared the governor's veto.

"The message back was no," Hill said. Meanwhile, he said, the counties - many already strapped for cash and facing deeper cuts in budget proposals on the table - are starting to reduce services. Armstrong County, for instance, will not offer bus rides to recipients of medical assistance until the budget is complete, Hill said.

Others, such as Montgomery County, are using IOUs. The county has not been able to pay foster-care subsidies or drug- and alcohol-program services, among many other human services, the last two weeks because of the budget impasse, a spokesman said.

"At this point, we don't know of anyone not receiving services," spokesman John Corcoran said, "but the vendors that provide those services are waiting for their money. They're not terribly happy about it, and they've called and let us know that."

Some wealthy counties, such as Bucks and Chester, have a cushion to carry them through, officials there said.

Bucks County, with a reserve fund of more than $60 million, expects to spend $5 million a month on health and human-services programs until a budget is passed, spokesman Chris Edwards said.

But providers fear that if the immediate crisis is averted this week, lawmakers might recess and forget that the future of thousands of businesses and organizations, and the tens of thousands of people they serve, remains in jeopardy as long as there is no approved state budget.

Many are hanging by a string.

"If you tell me on Aug. 15 that there are no checks, that is a crisis," said Bailey, who has a staff of 84 full-time and 40 part-time employees.

Sabol will continue to beg her own vendors for extra time to make payments and will pinch pennies in the meantime, she said.

"One option is for every private provider like us to send the kids back to the counties, but then they would have a domestic crisis on their hands," Sabol said. "We don't do that, that's not our mission, and it's not what we believe in. But when it's over, no one is going to send us a late fee."