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May 24 Begins Sprint To Budget Deadline, Will They Make It?
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With the Primary Election out of the way, the House, Senate and Gov. Rendell will begin their slow sprint to the July 1 deadline to enact the 2010-11 state budget with only a short break for Memorial Day. The state is already $1.1 billion short of expected revenues for FY 2009-10, add to that another potential $800 million hole due to the recent court decision on the use of MCare Funds, a $472 million shortfall in transportation (highway and mass transit) caused by federal disapproval of the I-80 toll plan and a $100 million increase in pension fund contributions, and they have lots of work to do.
Senate and House Republicans cling tightly to their position that no new taxes are needed to balance the budget in this economic climate and especially during an election year when they and not Gov. Rendell are up for reelection. What they say is needed are more budget cuts and for Gov. Rendell to abandoned his position that more funding is needed for education and his other priorities.
Gov. Rendell opened a special session on transportation funding May 4 outlining several options for dealing with that issue, but even the Democratically-controlled House will not finish the first round of hearings on the issue until late in June.
Gubernatorial Politics Republican candidate Tom Corbett said again on election night "new taxes are off the table." Following his Senate and House Republican colleagues, Corbett said more budget cuts are needed to bring the budget into balance. He has also called for a special session now to deal with the pension funding issues.
Democrat Dan Onorato said the state needs to figure out how to do its job within a $28 billion budget and that everything will be on the table, except for cost cutting on basic education and early childhood learning. Onorato also supports the enactment of a natural gas production severance tax to help fund the Department of Environmental Protection and to give money back to communities impacted by Marcellus Shale drilling.
Both candidates support cuts of 20 percent or more in Senate and House legislative accounts.
Gov. Rendell has responded to the calls for more budget cuts by asking legislators and candidates for the specific areas they would cut, saying his budgets over the last seven years have already taken the state back to 1996-97 budget levels.
Environmental Cuts Already Deep
For environmental programs the cuts have been without precedent in Commonwealth history.
The FY 2009-10 budget reduced overall General Fund moneys to the Department of Environmental Protection by 26.7 percent ($58 million) and includes an 18.5 percent reduction for the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources ($21 million). Gov. Rendell's proposed FY 2010-11 budget locks in those cuts and more.
Over the last eight years over $1.3 billion in environmental funding has been cut or diverted to other programs that could not get funding on their own.
More than 173,800 of State Forest land has been leased by the state for Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling and $383 million has been diverted from the DCNR Oil and Gas Fund to help balance the state budget just in the last two years.
1,464 full time and seasonal staff positions within DEP and DCNR were eliminated to balance the FY 2009-10 budget-- 147 full time positions and staff from DEP, 186 full-time positions and staff and 1,131 seasonal positions from DCNR. In addition to these cuts, the Growing Greener II bond issue funding ends this year decreasing funding for watershed restoration, mine reclamation, farmland preservation and other environmental restoration projects from more than $50 million a year to under $15 million.
There are certainly more cuts and possibly staff cuts and furloughs coming. What priority will legislators and Gov. Rendell place on environmental programs given this track record?
Link: Western PA Water Resources- Challenges And Opportunities Western PA Conservancy Local Water Summit May 21
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5/24/2010 |
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