budget

State workers gather to urge lawmakers to pass a budget on time and with funding increases: Politicker PhotoHARRISBURG -- Pennsylvania's state workers wanted lawmakers to hear their displeasure over potential furloughs and flat funding.

Literally.

Members of the Service Employees International Union gathered for a rally in the Capitol rotunda Monday afternoon, complete with chants that could probably be heard in both legislative chambers. Spokesmen and women urged the Legislature to pass a budget by July 30th and ensure it contains funding increases for their myriad departments.

Their funding demands add additional duress to a budget already straining from reduced revenue this year and funding demands from Gov. Ed Rendell, including his plan to begin adding $2.6 billion to state education funding the next six years.

"If they can't hear you," said state Rep. Scott Conklin (D-Centre County) at the rally's podium, "they better learn to hear you in the House and Senate."

HARRISBURG -- The House Appropriations Committee added $147 million to Gov. Ed Rendell's budget proposal Wednesday, one of the beginnigl steps of what many observers expect to be another difficult budget season.

The bill is expected to be moved to the House for second consideration on June 23. 

The Republican-controlled Senate has already indicated the proposal asks for too much money.

House Bill 2380 would increase spending 4.8 percent, to $28.484 billion. That's 0.6 percent more than the amount Rendell asked for in his original proposal.

HARRISBURG -- Let the budget politics begin.

Republican leadership blasted House Appropriations Chairman Dwight Evans (D-Philadelphia) for playing politics with people's lives after his committee Tuesday afternoon amended and then approved a bill that could prevent the state from furloughing nearly 25,000 "non-essential" state workers.

The committee unexpectedly considered the bill, Senate Bill 1122, hours before state Rep. Jerry Nailor (R-Cumberland County) was set to call for a discharge motion to bring it before the House.

But Evans and other Democrats on the committee amended it before approval. The changes would allow lawmakers to access nearly $750 million from the state's rainy day fund, a reserve designed to help during difficult economic times, to pay state employees if a budget isn't passed by July 1.

The House Appropriations Committee this afternoon unexpectedly amended and then approved a bill that would allow the state to temporarily retain roughly 25,000 state employees if a budget is not passed by July 1.

It would allocate $20 million of the state's rainy day fund, a reserve designed to help during difficult economic times, to pay for the state's "non-essential" employees.

Republicans, who almost unanimously opposed the bill, are already complaining it also gives Democrats access to nearly $725 million in Pennsylvania's rainy day fund.

They say today's passage is little more than a political stunt to fool the general public into believing Democrats are trying to remove the threat of furloughs.

Tuesday in Harrisburg will help decide whether the threat of furloughs will hang over budget negotiations.

State Sen. Jeff Piccola (R-Dauphin County) will hold a hearing of the Senate State Government Committee to discuss Gov. Ed Rendell's recent statements that he would be forced to temporarily lay off tens of thousands of state workers earlier this year than last. The committee, which Piccola chairs, will question Naomi Wyatt, secretary of the Office of Administration.

Gov. Ed Rendell today said he is optimistic after meeting with legislative leaders that the budget will be resolved before he will be forced to furlough state workers for the second year in a row.

But the governor said lawmakers must immediately form special task forces to scrutinize his budget proposals, which include health care and energy reform, the Jonas Salk Legacy Fund, an economic stimulus package and new education funding directed by the state's costing-out study.

"It's imperative that we start in those meetings this week," Rendell said at a press conference in the Capitol.