Rendell signs stopgap budget
HARRISBURG - Gov. Rendell signed a pared-down stopgap budget yesterday that will pay state workers and fund a few government services, saying he hoped the action would spur renewed talks to resolve the final 2009-10 spending plan.
HARRISBURG - Gov. Rendell signed a pared-down stopgap budget yesterday that will pay state workers and fund a few government services, saying he hoped the action would spur renewed talks to resolve the final 2009-10 spending plan.
But the temporary budget does not include billions of dollars that would normally fund education, health care, and social services.
"What I am signing today is not a budget," Rendell said. "I am signing legislation that will simply allow us to pay state employees . . . and that will send negotiators back to the table to communicate, compromise, and get real about delivering a true budget agreement."
Rendell urged top Democratic and Republican leaders to return to negotiations as part of a budget conference committee, which stalled after just two meetings last week. A committee meeting scheduled for today was postponed.
Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R., Delaware) said it was important to get state workers paid, but said he believed Rendell's intent was to create another crisis by depriving counties and school districts of state funding as a way to increase pressure for an income-tax hike.
Rendell has proposed a three-year, 16 percent increase to the personal income tax to close the budget deficit, though House Democratic leaders said Monday it was off the table.
"I don't think the governor is going to engage in any serious negotiations until that crisis hits," Pileggi told reporters in a video teleconference from his district office in Glen Mills. "And that seems to be the way he prefers to conduct budget negotiations."
The $11 billion temporary budget funds salaries for 77,000 state workers and includes $5.7 billion for the Department of Public Welfare, $1.6 billion for prisons, and nearly $7 million to operate the governor's office. Among the handful of programs that are funded are aid to black-lung victims and blind veterans and life-sustaining services, Rendell said, such as dialysis.
Rendell said that although he had cut hundreds of millions from the original spending plan he presented in February, the cuts would not offset the need to lay off hundreds of state workers. He said that between 300 and 800 people would lose their jobs; the precise figure and timing was expected to be announced today or Friday.
The state has been without a budget since the fiscal year began July 1, and the stopgap budget will not provide sufficient funding for most government programs. Rendell and Budget Secretary Mary Soderberg painted a bleak picture yesterday for schools, universities, state vendors, and local governments that depend on state aid.
Money for state vendors that provide services for local mental-health, child-welfare, and drug and alcohol programs could run out by the end of the month, and Soderberg acknowledged, for example, that many families that depend on state aid to pay for children's day care will face significant hardship.
Back paychecks for state workers are expected to go out by Monday, Soderberg said, but separate legislation will need to be passed to pay about 1,600 workers from the State Employee Retirement System, Public School Employee Retirement System, Public Utility Commission, and Gaming Control Board. The House approved those bills yesterday, but they still must be approved by the Senate, which is not in session until Monday.
