By Rick Dandes
The Daily Item
SUNBURY — The $28.04 billion budget Pennsylvania lawmakers approved Wednesday elicited mixed responses from two Valley Republican legislators — Merle H. Phillips, R-108 of RD2 Sunbury, who voted for the bill, and Russell H. Fairchild, R-85 of Lewisburg, who voted against it.
Phillips said, "Although this budget isn't perfect, and I am disappointed in several of the funding reductions for many valuable and worthwhile programs, it does strive to meet a good balance between state revenues, federal stimulus money and obligations to the people of Pennsylvania."
Last year, the budget was 100 days late, and many programs were faced with borrowing money to get through that period of uncertainty. This was avoided under the budget passed by the state House and Senate on Wednesday.
"We were pleased to be able to reduce the governor's proposal by more than $1 billion," Phillips said. "And, we were also successful in fighting off all of the new or expanded tax increases proposed by the governor. Every dollar we were able to cut from the governor's spending plan represented another dollar cut from the looming deficit. As we did last year, we fought to better prepare Pennsylvania for the future."
Basic education and the state's 500 public school districts will receive a $250 million increase, for an average increase of about 4.52 percent.
In addition, two of the cost-saving initiatives that House Republicans spearheaded made it into the final budget plan. For the 2010-11 fiscal year, there will be better utilization of the state's purchasing power through increased use of P-Cards and more aggressive efforts to cut back on tax refund errors.
"There are many other ways we can raise revenue without tax increases, and we will be working on getting those into law in the coming months," Phillips said.
Fairchild, while admitting that the bill's passage represented one of the best concerted efforts by Republicans and Democrats under the Rendell administration, said that in the end, he voted with his gut feelings and against approval.
"I felt the budget, for its time, was a good budget, a tough budget. But it doesn't look to the future," he said. "And talking with my constituents, they had great reservations about some aspects of the bill."
Fairchild was disturbed by some of the smaller cuts in the bill. He didn't like the 11.7 percent cut in the Agriculture Department budget.
He didn't like the Civil Air Patrol's budget being cut entirely. "These are good kids, and they do so much good volunteer work," he said. "Are you saying we couldn't find $100,000 for them?"
But what really bothered Fairchild is that the budget is based upon receiving federal stimulus money of about $850 million. "I'm not convinced that this will actually happen," he said. "If we don't get that funding, it will create a big hole in the budget, and I'm afraid that one day we'll have to go back to the table for some supplemental bills."
Meanwhile, Rendell said Thursday he hoped to sign the state budget into law on Tuesday, but that he may veto it if lawmakers are unable to resolve disputes over companion legislation.
Rendell has 10 days to sign or veto the budget bill.
