What is happening — or, rather, not happening — in Harrisburg can be briefly explained in playground terms.
The Democratic governor made a decision that made Republican state senators angry. So the senators took their ball and went home.
As former Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell pointed out to Spotlight PA, most voters don’t really care about a stalled budget — they care about how schools, for instance, are affected by the budget that ultimately gets passed and signed.
Most of us are too preoccupied with the demands of ordinary life to follow the inside baseball of state budget negotiations.
This editorial board believes that state lawmakers count on our disinterest, so they can do things like walk away from the process before it’s finished.
Lengthy summertime absences from Harrisburg aren’t unusual for the largest “full-time” Legislature in the nation.
Lawmakers say they work in their districts in July and August. But how lucky for them that they don’t have to commute to the state Capitol for session days during the months when their kids are home from school. This is a family-friendly arrangement that many of their constituents would love to have.
The least that lawmakers can do — and we do mean the least — is to take the procedural steps necessary to send the budget to the governor for his signature before heading for the state Capitol exits.
But state senators failed to do that earlier this month. And the consequences for them will be minimal (if there are any) — lawmakers get paid, no matter what.
Cue the classic Gershwin song, “Nice Work If You Can Get It.”
Nothing says you’re in touch with your constituents like a paid two-month break from your usual job duties. Especially when the base lawmaker salary now tops $100,000, thanks to an automatic pay raise last December. (Lawmakers get automatic annual cost-of-living adjustments because of a deal struck with then-Republican Gov. Tom Ridge in 1995; now they don’t have to do the messy work of justifying their salary hikes each year to their constituents.)
Even before the latest pay increase, Pennsylvania’s legislators were the third-highest-paid in the nation, behind only their counterparts in California and New York.
Meanwhile, as LancasterOnline’s Ashley Stalnecker reported July 11, Lancaster County school administrators are bracing for the potential effects of the budget impasse. “The proposed budget includes an increase of more than $700 million in basic and special education funding, but if it’s in legislative limbo until September, the halt of state subsidies would require public schools to find money elsewhere to meet payroll, pay for operating and other mandated costs,” Stalnecker noted.
Many Pennsylvania school districts, which count on state funding to cover nearly half of their budgets, might need to take out a line of credit or put off paying bills if the impasse stretches on.
Manheim Township School District will likely pull from its reserves to make up for the delay in state subsidies, Chief Operating Officer Donna Robbins told LNP — LancasterOnline in an email.
This should infuriate district parents and taxpayers: “All districts, regardless of fiscal health, will lose significant interest earnings resulting from the spending down of reserves and the inability to invest state subsidy dollars,” Robbins wrote. “Is the state going to reimburse the school district’s lost investment interest earnings?”
It can’t be easy for Republicans — accustomed to calling the shots in Harrisburg — to accept the reality that Democrats were in control of the state House for the first time in more than a decade. But elections have consequences. And the narrow Democratic majority unsurprisingly flexed its newfound (and perhaps fleeting) power and balked at spending public money on a new private school voucher program. So the governor said he would use his line-item veto to excise the program from the budget legislation.
LNP — LancasterOnline Opinion has published two columns explaining why Republicans are angry: one Sunday from state Reps. Mindy Fee of Manheim Borough and Steve Mentzer of Manheim Township, and the other last Friday from state Sen. Ryan Aument, of West Hempfield Township.
Both columns pointed out that state Senate leaders thought they had a deal with the governor on the new school voucher program and asserted that the governor reneged on that deal. Fee and Mentzer wrote of Shapiro breaking his promise and their trust.
As LNP — LancasterOnline’s Jaxon White reported, Shapiro contends there “was never a deal between all three parties (the state House, the state Senate and the governor) that was acknowledged by all parties, privately and publicly.”
According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Shapiro “laid blame on Senate Republicans for failing to reach an agreement with their House Democratic colleagues. And he put the onus on both parties to come together and figure it out.”
The dispute is likely to shred whatever chances there were for collegiality and compromise in Harrisburg. And that’s a shame.
But in most workplaces, you can’t just refuse to perform an essential part of your well-compensated job — like finishing a budget — for a couple of months.
The state Senate isn’t slated to reconvene until Sept. 18; the state House even later: Sept. 26. The completion of the budget process, though, hinges on the state Senate.
With so much time on their hands, state lawmakers should write essays about what they did on their summer vacations. We’re sure their constituents would like to read them.
— LancasterOnline via TNS
