Budget fudge

The state limps to a fiscal solution, for now

The state finally has a balanced budget, but it’s nothing to write home about. It takes some important steps, such as preserving funding for state-related universities, while leaving some work, such as a needed severance tax on gas drillers, for another day. More than anything, the four-month-long impasse points to the need for lawmakers to grow new revenues and begin the budget-crafting process earlier in the year.

Much of the debate centered on how to close a deficit of about $2.2 billion in a budget of nearly $32 billion. A severance tax would have helped, and a fee on municipalitiesthat exclusively rely on state police for protection would have, too. But these proved politically unpalatable among legislators. Instead, the final revenue package relies on a $1.5 billion borrowing against the tobacco settlement; diverting $300 million from special funds, such as those used for important purposes such as transportation and environmental cleanup; and an anticipated $200 million or more this year from a gaming expansion.

It all has a robbing-Peter-to-payPaul quality to it. Borrowing is no solution to a structural deficit, and cannibalizing special funds hardly seems smart in a state with many pressing infrastructure and service needs. Banking on more gambling proceeds — the new legislation legalizes play online and in truck stops, airports and 10 mini-casinos — is a dubious proposition. Pennsylvania already collects $1.4 billion annually from casinos. There’s also the Pennsylvania Lottery. How much deeper does the gaming market go?

Fortunately, the budget leaves intact about $650 million for the University of Pittsburgh, Penn State University, Temple University in Philadelphia, Lincoln University in Chester County and the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine. Pitt Chancellor Patrick Gallagher feared that legislators would defund the state-related schools and put the $650 million toward the $2.2 billion deficit. That would have been the textbook definition of taking the easy way out. Let’s hope that the Legislature recognizes the folly of undercutting the universities’ work in research and workforce development, and Mr. Gallagher won’t have to worry about Pitt’s appropriation in the next budget cycle.

Better for the Legislature to lend its expertise toward overhauling struggling members of the 14-university State System of Higher Education and to spend time hammering out taxes for the gas industry and municipalities that let others subsidize their state police service. Residents in some municipalities support local police departments and pay taxes that help fund the state police, while other municipalities save money by relying exclusively on state police for protection. That isn’t fair.

Gov. Tom Wolf’s proposed $25-perperson fee on municipalities relying on 24-hour state police protection would have raised about $63 million. That isn’t a huge amount in a $32 billion budget, but it would have been something if he’d been able to push it through. He should resurrect the idea and expand it, so that municipalities with part-time police forces would pay a pro-rated amount for state police coverage they get the rest of the time.

The Legislature’s 253 full-time members have delivered an uninspiring performance that left significant sums on the table. They should have loftier ambitions — and strive for punctuality — next year.