Pa. budget talks lead to nowhere

First Posted:

MARC LEVY Associated Press Writer

HARRISBURG — Negotiations to break Pennsylvania’s monthlong state budget stalemate will go behind closed doors after top legislators on Thursday halted an unusual public negotiating effort marked by two days of partisan sparring that drew sharp criticism from Gov. Ed Rendell.
House Appropriations Chairman Dwight Evans, D-Philadelphia, unexpectedly gaveled an end to the meeting following several hours of talks, saying he wanted to move discussions into private with Rendell and Republican leaders.
Shortly before that, the Democratic governor urged the panel, which had been appointed by the Legislature’s presiding officers to break the logjam, to move beyond ideology and get down to business.
“This shouldn’t be theater,” Rendell told reporters. “This shouldn’t be a circus.”
Aides said Rendell would meet today with Evans and Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware. Early next week, the House is expected to consider letting Rendell pay employees and generally keep government offices and state parks open while negotiations continue.
State government started the new fiscal year July 1 without a spending plan in place, severely curtailing its legal authority to distribute subsidies to schools and counties or to pay vendors and employees.
Pennsylvania is now one of three states without a settled budget in place for the current fiscal year, and pressure for a deal is mounting from tens of thousands of state government employees who are dealing with tight household finances.
Normally, Pennsylvania’s budget is negotiated behind closed doors. However, hard bargaining never took place over the two days of televised meetings, and the sides remained deeply divided over how to resolve a multibillion-dollar, recession-driven falloff in tax receipts.
Democrats on the panel had insisted on reviewing the impact of Republican-proposed budget cuts that would affect school programs and human services on which their constituents rely. But Republicans said Democrats had not showed how they would pay for the level of spending they want and were simply dragging out the process to avoid voting for a massive and unpopular tax increase.
“If it did anything, I hope it educated the public and the press,” Evans said afterward.
If experience is any guide from Florida, a state known for its strong public records and open meetings “sunshine” laws, Pennsylvania’s legislators may be working backward.
Florida legislators typically bargain over a state budget in public, although some major decisions — such as a bottom-line spending total and an agreement this year to increase tobacco taxes — are made in advance by legislative leaders behind closed doors.
Rep. Sam Smith, the House Republican leader in Pennsylvania, said Thursday it is easier to be candid behind closed doors since legislators are more likely to posture and give speeches when television cameras are there. Rendell agreed.
“I believe in accessibility, public accessibility, but this is the problem when you turn on the TV cameras, and stuff is open to the public: Everybody postures,” Rendell said Wednesday after watching the first day of the proceedings. “They don’t get down to real work, they want to make points, they want to score points.”
In the meantime, most of the state’s operations have been seamless, although billions of state subsidy dollars are in limbo, forcing public schools, hospitals, universities and counties to make alternative plans — such as dipping into reserves or putting off purchases — to get by until a budget is signed.
On Monday, the Democratic-controlled House is scheduled to return to Harrisburg and take up a Republican-penned $27.3 billion budget bill that Rendell could use his line-item veto power to whittle down into a $4 billion skeleton.
Rendell would not say exactly which offices and programs would receive money, although the state’s annual payroll is about $3.6 billion.
The earliest the bill could reach Rendell’s desk is Tuesday. After that, it would take about five more days for the state Treasury to process checks, including back pay, for employees.