Budget Analysis

I didn’t have a story published in today’s Patriot-News, but I think my pal from the Morning Call had a great analysis of this year’s somewhat odd budget process.  Check it out…

Is the state opening back door for the budget?

Air of secrecy smacks of 2005 pay raise for lawmakers.

By John L. Micek | Call Harrisburg Bureau

July 3, 2008

HARRISBURG | So much for reform. If state lawmakers vote today, as expected, on a new budget, they’ll be doing so with — at most — 24 hours’ notice of what’s in it.

Gov. Ed Rendell and legislative leaders reached agreement on a $28.2 billion spending plan very early Monday morning. Wednesday afternoon, increasingly frustrated lawmakers, lobbyists and activists still awaited word on the numbers it contains.

“The only thing that’s missing is the budget,” quipped Tim Potts of the reform group Democracy Rising Pennsylvania. “The Kremlin was more open than this.”

Rendell, speaking to reporters Wednesday afternoon, defended a strategy of releasing no details until all were settled. Doing otherwise, he said, could unravel the delicate compromise.

 

Typically, five leaders write Pennsylvania’s annual budget — Rendell and representatives for House and Senate Democrats and Republicans — behind closed doors. Their work is summarized for lawmakers, often just before a vote.

But the air of secrecy provoked grumbles from reformers like Potts, who say the push to approve a budget before the burgers hit the grill this Fourth of July weekend runs counter to senior lawmakers’ claims that they’ve slowed down the legislative process and made it more open to the public. Such claims were made amid outrage over a late-night pay raise back in 2005.

Budget negotiators were to begin circulating numbers as early as late Wednesday, including the changes to proposals Rendell first made in February.

In an e-mail, state Rep. Richard Grucela, D-Northampton, said majority House Democrats had not, as of late Wednesday afternoon, held a caucus-wide discussion or received the customary spreadsheets containing budget details. “But [I] assume it will be very soon,” Grucela wrote.

Reformers also have complained about some of the parliamentary tactics embraced to keep the budget process moving. On Tuesday, the House skipped a procedural step that has traditionally allowed rank-and-file lawmakers to offer amendments for such local priorities as libraries and county substance abuse programs.

The move might have preserved the budget compromise. But it further distanced lawmakers from the process.

“It is the first time that this body will be voting on a truly fake budget that does not reflect the priorities of the members,” House GOP spokesman Steve Miskin asserted.

Republicans were complicit in the decision to forgo the amendments, however, because the maneuver required a two-thirds majority vote and Democrats hold a thin edge.

“It’s back to a ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ situation with open government,” said Barry Kauffman, executive director of the government watchdog group Common Cause of Pennsylvania. “This is arguably the most important bill approved [each year, yet] … no one understands the implications or exactly what it does.”

Potts said, “You tend to blame the leaders for this. But it does not happen without the votes of the rank-and-file. It truly is astonishing.”

The fiscal plan would increase state spending by 3.8 percent and includes more than $2 billion in borrowing. It calls for no broad-based tax increases.

john.micek@mcall.com

717-783-7305