Already four months overdue, the Pennsylvania state budget is careening toward a “disastrous” cliff, and there’s an exodus from Harrisburg by senators from both sides of the aisle.
“It is easy to blame people for this. It is harder to find solutions. That’s what leadership is,” Auditor Eugene DePasquale said in a Philadelphia Magazine report this week.
The Senate is taking a vacation after a temporary fix to delay the budget madness was vetoed by Gov. Tom Wolf and an override of the veto failed.
Without a breakthrough, the state’s schools could reach $1 billion in the red by Thanksgiving.
“At a minimum, this is a distraction for our school districts, and at its worst, it’s a downright emergency,” DePasquale said. “… If you’re not frustrated, you’re not paying attention. … The only people that are winning in this right now are the banks.”
The future of already-suffering schools is at the center of the heated dispute as well; a $400 million increase in education funding didn’t go far enough.
Also at issue are plans to shift the state’s mix of taxation; Gov. Wolf’s latest version never reached the Senate.
Read more about the budget impasse and its implications in Philadelphia Magazine here.
