Watch a video report on changing the state budget process:
The legislative dilly-dallying means nearly 170,000 students at Penn State, Pitt, Lincoln and Temple could face stiff tuition increases this spring. The state owes their universities about $700 million for this academic and fiscal year. The state House returned from recess on Monday and the state Senate is due November 16. However, during the election break, leaders on the gaming issue pressed on and reportedly are closer to agreement.
But it begs the question: How does Pennsylvania rework its budget-making system to ensure that this kind of dysfunction does not become a long-running act? There are organizations giving budget reform serious thought and we bring three of their leaders together Friday night at 8:30 on Smart Talk on WITF-TV to share their best ideas.
Common Cause/PA executive director Barry Kauffman sees this year's budget fiasco as a " ... crisis that is causing real harm to Pennsylvania – to its people, its businesses, and to government itself – and it doesn't have to be this way." Kauffman reminds lawmakers that if they were to enact his group's budget reform proposal (first offered in 1991), they could better ensure a fair and on-time state budget every year.
Common Cause's plan calls for, among other remedies, a series of deadlines for acting on each phase of the budget process, penalties for missed deadlines, and forfeiture of pay for key legislative- and executive-branch players. "It is Common Cause/PA's position that this disciplined process keeps the budget enactment on track, protects the public from irresponsible public officials by continuing government operations and services, creates incentives to ensure annual review of programs and revenues, and places the burden of failure to pass a timely budget on the responsible public officials," quoting their August 5, 2009 press release.
Democracy Rising PA president Tim Potts lays out a direct suggestion to the General Assembly and the governor, writing in an opinion piece, "They can determine the highest priorities for state funding and construct budgets for those things first. Let's say education is our top priority. After the governor proposes a budget, the House and Senate Education and Appropriations committees can negotiate education funding, deciding what it takes to meet the needs of this highest priority. Then lawmakers could take up public safety - prisons, police and fire protection, public health, emergency preparedness - determining what to spend on our second highest priority. Then agriculture. Then human services. Then economic development. Then....
"This approach makes sense because sooner or later they will run out of money, and it only makes sense to use what money we have for our highest priorities. It also makes sense because there will still be a list of programs that past budgets have funded, and we will have to face the question: Are these programs so important that we should raise taxes to continue funding them? Or are they truly such low priorities that they're not worth raising taxes to support?" Potts argues his plan ensures reality, transparency, ownership and timeliness -- four principles, he says, that were in short supply this time around.
Eric Epstein, coordinator of RocktheCapital.org, writes on his blog, "Pennsylvania is at war with itself. Political appointees and elected officials are no longer above the law or below the radar. Because of Bonusgate, we must admit that voluntary, self policing polices regarding public service and political promotion have failed. Perception matters. From “cut and gut” legislation to pay raise madness to Bonusgate to the (former Democratic State Senator Vincent) Fumo conviction to the budget debacle, this state is sorely in need of a morality transfusion. Running out the clock is not reform, and inertia is not progress. Real tangible and statutory reform is in danger of experiencing a brief rise from obscurity and a quick descent into oblivion." Epstein fully supports Common Cause's proposal for reform of the budget-making process.
Matt Brouillette, president and CEO of the Commonwealth Foundation, a conservative think tank in Harrisburg, calls for additional changes in an op-ed piece this fall for The Central Penn Business Journal. Brouillette writes, "Currently, we allow a deficit to accrue over the course of an entire fiscal year, in violation of the spirit of the state Constitution (Article VIII, Section 13: "Operating budget appropriations made by the General Assembly shall not exceed the actual and estimated revenues and surplus in the same fiscal year"). Therefore, from July through March, there should be a quarterly realignment of appropriations to tax revenues collected. For April through June, the realignment of revenues and expenditures should be monthly.
"At the outset of a new fiscal year, if a budget has not been enacted, appropriations should continue at the levels of the previous fiscal year. This would forever end the ability of politicians to use state workers, programs and services as leverage to achieve ideological agendas." Brouillette also pushes for a part-time legislature and spending and taxation limits. Lobbying reform comes slowly to Pennsylvania but many good-government groups look to enactment of this year's budget as evidence that more accountability and transparency are needed.
Making lawmakers cut their own jobs, reduce what they can spend and tax, and limit how much they can raise for their campaigns sounds like Mission Impossible. Kauffman, Potts and Epstein would argue it's not impossible if the people to whom lawmakers are responsible demand those actions.
The General Assembly has other matter to consider and many of those issues have been neglected amid the budget wrangling. We know Central Pennsylvanians felt the sting of the budget delay and we’d like to know what changes you want to see enacted. Please send us your ideas at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . And please join us Friday at 8:30 p.m. on WITF-TV for Smart Talk.
