Dec 17, 2015 5 min read

“The government passed a budget,” said Frank Byrd of Canton Township, who was in the audience as Washington County commissioners adopted a 2016 general fund spending plan of $85 million-plus.

His remarks were met with applause. “And it was bipartisan, Republican and Democrats working together,” Byrd added.

Washington County’s tax levy will remain at 24.9 mills, but county officials have a bone to pick with the state, which is slogging into its sixth month without a budget.

During the impasse, Washington County has used $3 million from two sources to pay bills that are the responsibility of state government, but its capacity is not without limits.

“It’s been horrible for the community-based providers,” Tim Kimmel, county director of human services, told the commissioners Wednesday at an agenda-setting session. “There’s going to be a point where we can’t” go on.

The first $1 million loaned to Behavioral Health and Developmental Services came from the general fund surplus, and the source of the additional $2 million was the county’s “legacy fund,” which comes largely from royalties Washington County accumulated from Cross Creek County Park’s natural gas and oil wells.

“We have not had to lay off anybody,” Kimmel noted after the agenda meeting. He said agencies that provide services to Washington County children and youth, senior citizens, behavioral health and development and drug and alcohol abuse are in dire straits. “From what I understand, they’ve all used their lines of credit.”

The state Department of Aging alone owes Washington County $625,000 alone for the past five months, with another $125,000 coming due at the end of December.

“Because we’re able to pay the bills, that’s what’s keeping people working,” said Commissioner Harlan Shober, second vice president of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania, which is looking into the legality of withholding fees and payments to the state.

Shober last month was among those who discussed a course of action to end the stalemate and prevent future harm to taxpayers and those who use the services of agencies dealing with what are known collectively as “human services.”

During his first year in office, Gov. Ed Rendell signed a state budget on Dec. 23, 2003, so Pennsylvania has been down this path before.

Assuming that the state does eventually approve a budget, commission Chairman Larry Maggi asked how the soon the county will be reimbursed.

“The latest I have heard is that once a budget is passed, the state will have a 30-day period to make the counties whole,” Kimmel replied.

“One payment? One check?” Maggi queried.

Kimmel said he expects separate payments for Aging Services, Behavioral Health and Developmental Services and Children and Youth Services. The county has basically been giving the state an interest-free loan during the stalemate.

State Sen. Camera Bartolotta, who attended part of the commissioners’ meeting Thursday, said, “I’m really, really, really grateful that the county did step up and did try to fill a gap for our most vulnerable people out there because this impasse has made so many people suffer needlessly. So many of these line items we agreed on in the very beginning.”

Bartolotta hopes to be returning today to Harrisburg, and if there is no movement on a total state budget, she then she favors a stopgap funding measure “to release the strangle-hold on some of these agencies.”

Maggi noted that incumbent legislators – all members of the state House and members of the state Senate who represent odd-numbered districts – are just seven weeks away from circulating nominating petitions. Pundits have said if the impasse lasts into the nomination period that it is sure to bring a host of challengers to the fore, and incumbents running for office would be on the firing line if a budget has not yet been adopted.

On Wednesday, Kimmel also expressed his personal opinion that “our elected representatives should not get paid without a state budget. Then we would see how fast a state budget gets passed.”

Bartolotta said she has refused the $159 per diem since taking office and she has received no reimbursements for out-of-pocket expenses related to her travel or presence in Harrisburg, and that the state Senate took out a loan to pay both parties’ legislators and staff.

Commissioners across the state are adopting county budgets this month and Commission Vice Chairman Diana Irey Vaughan found a note of irony. “It is against the law, but they (state officials) have been able to get away with breaking the law by not having a budget on time,” she said.

In its 2015 spending plan, Washington County depended on $24.4 million from what it called “intergovernmental revenues” for its $82 million general fund budget, which represents nearly 31 percent. The bulk of that money comes from the state, but counties have not received payments since the budget impasse began.

County treasurers’ offices serve as intermediaries for the sale of dog licenses, hunting licenses for deer; fishing licenses; and licenses for small games of chance. The prothonotary, clerk of courts, register of wills, clerk of orphans’ court and magisterial offices collect state-determined filing and recording fees.