Price of Service Cuts: Mental Health/Mental Retardation and Children and Youth Services Receive Cuts
August 5, 2009
Deep cuts to public services are being considered in Harrisburg as lawmakers and the Governor work to resolve the budget crisis. PBPC is tracking news reports on the potential impact of these cuts on local communities across Pennsylvania.
Today, we look at how local governments are being forced to make cuts to Mental Health/Mental Retardation and Children and Youth Services, as the budget impasse persists.
The Scranton Times-Tribune reported on August 5 that the recently approed bridge budget reinstated paychecks for state employees but not payments to local governments which continue to struggle. As the stalemate continues for the sixth week in a row, local governments have been forced to cut jobs and services in Mental Health/Mental Retardation and Children and Youth Services. School districts, which were scheduled to receive a $416 million subsidy payment in July and are supposed to received an $876 million subsidy payment in August, have had to cut programs. Hospitals have responded by cutting staff.
More information about how proposed cuts will hurt Pennsylvanians can be found at PBPC's 30 Ways in 30 Days Service Cuts Will Hurt Pennsylvanians, which examines proposed cuts to public education, college costs, hospitals, children's health care, senior services, state police patrols, and agricultural programs, among other areas. Return to the Price of Service Cuts.
Read the Scranton Times-Tribune article below.
Stopgap state budget turns off aid
By Robert Swift
August 5, 2009
http://www.scrantontimes.com/news/1.165445
HARRISBURG - A "stopgap" state budget that won final approval Tuesday will enable thousands of state employees to be paid, but keep the state aid spigot largely turned off for local governments, community institutions and social service programs.
The House, by a 195-3 vote, sent a $27 billion budget bill for use as a stopgap to Gov. Ed Rendell. The governor plans to announce today how much spending he will veto out of the bill in order to keep 77,000 state employees paid and state agencies operating at minimal levels for the 2009-10 fiscal year.
Mr. Rendell is apparently still wrestling with that decision. He said Tuesday that state aid for life-preserving health programs like renal dialysis would be preserved. Estimates of the amount in the stopgap bill range from $7 billion to $13 billion, but could go higher.
The stopgap action doesn't solve the bitter partisan impasse that has left Pennsylvania without a budget for more than one month. Lawmakers of both parties and the governor remain far apart on spending amounts and priorities, how to erase a $3.3 billion revenue deficit accumulated in fiscal 2008-09 and the best way to stabilize finances for the future while in the nation is in the midst of a recession.
Pennsylvania is one of three states with July 1 deadlines that don't have a budget.
It will take about one week for state employees to receive full paychecks as well as retroactive pay owed them for being on the job without pay since July 1. Critics said the stopgap action merely exchanges one set of hostages - unpaid state employees - for another - local governments.
The stopgap has serious ramifications for county governments, school districts, hospitals and other major recipients of state aid.
Lackawanna County commissioners warned July 24 they would have to order payless paydays for state-funded county employees and reduce services for Mental Health/Mental Retardation, Children and Youth and other programs if a state budget hadn't been passed in two weeks.
County officials across the state are looking at employee layoffs and service cuts to get by with state aid absent, said Douglas Hill, director of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania.
The 501 school districts already missed a $416 million state subsidy payment last month and a $876 million payment scheduled for Aug. 27 is threatened, said David Salter, spokesman for the Pennsylvania School Boards Association. School boards have been making cuts.
"They are not filling positions," added Mr. Salter. "Schools are suspending programs such as languages."
School districts' ability to weather the stopgap will depend on several factors, including their reliance on state subsidies, reserves and projections about what level of state aid they would receive when school budgets for fiscal 2009-10 were enacted in June.
Most of the state's general acute care hospitals either have or are considering cutting staff or reducing spending for capital improvements due to deteriorating finances, according to the Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania. Proposed cuts in state and federal payments have exacerbated problems.
The impact of an extended loss of state aid remains to be seen, said association spokesman Roger Baumgarten.
