Pennsylvania Counties Look at Drastic Actions Against State Amid Budget Mess
The Rotunda of the Pennsylvania State Capitol in Harrisburg. Nagel Photography / Shutterstock.com
Will cash-strapped local leaders sue to get the money they’re owed?
As Pennsylvania’s nearly sixth-month state budget impasse drags on, the commonwealth’s county governments continue to feel considerable fiscal pain. State funding for counties to administer human services programs dried up this summer, forcing many local leaders to make uneasy financial decisions amid the budgetary uncertainty in Harrisburg.
As Route Fifty detailed earlier this month, many counties have turned to borrowing to shore up funding to maintain human services programs. In eastern Pennsylvania, leaders in Northampton County, for instance, made moves to borrow up to $50 million to stabilize the county's general fund, which has not seen contributions from the state since June.
“We elected not to suspend the programs. We believe it’s important to keep them going,” John A. Brown, Northampton’s county executive, told Route Fifty in an interview. “But after four or five months it’s coming to the point where we don’t have the cash flow.”
Many other Pennsylvania counties have been facing similar tough decisions. And some county leaders are looking to get tough with state decisionmakers unable to compromise on a budget.
Before Thanksgiving, the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania approved a motion authorizing the organization’s legal counsel explore the possibility of bringing litigation against the commonwealth.
“Counties have tapped reserves, been forced to borrow, delayed hirings, limited some services, and reduced or stopped paying vendors in order to continue providing for the well-being of our residents,” Lancaster County’s Craig Lehman, who serves as CCAP president, said in a statement from the organization released last week Monday. “It is unconscionable that the commonwealth’s continued impasse is negatively affecting those in critical need.”
Dauphin County Commissioner Jeff Haste, who is the CCAP board chairman, noted in the organization’s statement, that Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf and the Republican-controlled state legislature “do not fully understand the scope and nature of the harm their inaction causes, and do not seem to share our view of the crisis in services, which affects the everyday lives of our residents.”
In Haste’s home county, commissioners are now looking at halting county payments to the state from locally generated licensing, fees and revenue until the budget mess at the State Capitol can be resolved, according to PennLive.com. The county, which includes Harrisburg, has sent roughly $28 million to the commonwealth’s coffers to date in 2015 and is owed nearly that same amount in human services funding from the state.
Leaders in Bucks County, north of Philadelphia, have already voted to stop payments to the state. As The Associated Press reports, the county has spent $50 million from its reserves to continue state-funded services with the Harrisburg’s spigot turned off.
"Every time we think there's going to be light at the end of the tunnel, it gets dark," said Commissioner Robert G. Loughery, adding that withholding the state's money "was our way of sending a message" to legislators and the governor.
Aware it might be on shaky legal footing, Bucks does not intend to spend the state's money.
While some county governments want to send state leaders in Harrisburg a clear message about the pain they’re feeling, others don’t think it’s wise to rock the boat at this point.
As the York Daily Record reported Friday, York County Commissioner Steve Chronister said that the move by Bucks County leaders was simply grandstanding and may not be needed since a state budget solution may be in sight:
Chronister and fellow York County Commissioner Doug Hoke are confident the Pennsylvania budget impasse … will end in a week or so, possibly by the end of next week. And for that reason, they see withholding money or potentially suing the state as a moot point.
"I'm not a fan of withholding money or one government suing another government," Hoke said.
In the meantime, county leaders in Pennsylvania are waiting for some sort of resolution in Harrisburg. But time is starting to run out for counties with limited fiscal options.
(Photo by Nagel Photography / Shutterstock.com)
Michael Grass is Executive Editor of Government Executive’s Route Fifty.
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