Rendell wants budget on his desk in a week

HARRISBURG - Gov. Rendell yesterday gave legislative leaders a deadline of Sunday to deliver to him an approved state budget to sign, but minutes later said he could wait as long as next Tuesday if necessary.

"We need to bring this to a conclusion," Rendell said after meeting with House and Senate leaders at the governor's mansion. "I am not satisfied with the progress."

He also said he was no fan of one of the budget deal's most controversial provisions: a tax on tickets to museums, zoos, and performing-arts events.

Eleven days ago, Rendell and Democratic legislative leaders, joined by Senate Republicans, announced a handshake agreement to end the state's three-month-old budget impasse.

But details of the $27.9 billion deal, promised at that time, have not emerged. Rendell said he wanted legislators to work through the week and into the weekend if necessary to finish the job.

Rendell's acknowledgment that the bills might take another week to reach his desk was the latest sign of lingering uncertainties over the budget deal. So were comments yesterday from Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R., Delaware) and Dwight Evans, who heads the House Appropriations Committee.

Pileggi called the Sunday deadline a "best-case scenario." He said he and his staff would work diligently to complete the process by early next week.

Evans (D., Phila.) also was reluctant to put a date on the budget's completion or even to specify when a draft version of the budget and as many as 12 related bills would be ready for public review.

"We're doing everything we can to get this done," said Evans.

Rendell's call for a deadline comes as discontent mounts among a number of lawmakers who oppose various revenue-generating items, all added to the deal to fill a billion-dollar-plus shortfall.

Some legislators oppose expanded natural-gas drilling on state land. Some are against a tax on small games of chance. Others are against the proposed tax on arts, museums, and cultural events.

"I'm not comfortable with the arts and culture tax," said Rendell. "It would have been the last exemption I'd have lifted."

Rendell has said repeatedly, however, that after legislators ditched his original budget-balancing proposal - an increase in the state income tax - he offered them a menu of sales-tax exemptions, and said he would accept their choice of which ones they wanted to abolish to balance the budget.

Bipartisan antipathy toward some of the revenue-generating proposals could threaten the budget's passage in the House, where the Republican caucus has voiced opposition to the budget for its spending level and for containing new taxes.

To reporters' questions, Rendell said yesterday that House Republican leaders had not participated in the latest work session at the governor's mansion.

Among the other tax proposals are a 25-cent increase in the cigarette tax, a new tax on small cigars, known as cigarillos, and a freeze on the planned phase-out of the capital-stock-and-franchise tax.

Rendell said that once the budget is enacted, the state is ready to expedite payments in as few as four days to counties, municipalities, and nonprofit groups that provide critical social services, all of which have struggled as they await resumption of their state funding.

"Look, no one is happy with the budget," said Rendell. But he said that to have the legislature vote down the budget this late in the year and start from scratch would be a disaster.

"Leadership has got to resolve the problems, they've got to count heads, and they've got to move forward," Rendell said.

Pileggi said no elements of the budget on the revenue side would change as a result of any opposition, and maintained he had the votes in his caucus to pass the package as it stands.

He said that in the last week there had been a "narrowing of the opposition" as members learned more details of the proposals.

"As each day passes, the number of open issues gets smaller and shorter," Pileggi said at a news conference yesterday.

He said still unresolved were the license fee and tax rate that casinos would pay on another feature of the budget deal: legalized poker and other table games at the state's slot parlors.