Push to keep PennDOT projects going
Gov. Wolf’s administration sees ‘potential’ to avoid halt
HARRISBURG — While legislative Republicans on Monday said Gov. Tom Wolf committed to keeping PennDOT road projects going despite the agency’s earlier threat to halt them for lack of money, Wolf’s own spokesperson stopped short of a guarantee.
“The governor agreed to explore a short-term solution, and the administration is looking at potential ways to make sure that construction projects do not stop,” Lyndsay Kensinger, a Wolf spokesperson, wrote in an email late Monday afternoon.
The slightly different takes on conversations between Wolf, a Democrat, and Republicans came after PennDOT last month told lawmakers that hundreds of road and bridge projects across the state — including many in the Lehigh Valley — would be suspended Tuesday after it failed to get lawmakers’ approval to borrow $600 million.
On Monday, both Sen. Pat Browne, a Lehigh County Republican, and House Republicans’ spoke sperson Jason Gottesman said Wolf agreed to make administrative financial moves to allow the projects to continue.
Browne, who is chairperson of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said he was on a leadership call with Wolf on Monday morning.
“The administration will find a means internally” to prevent the crisis, Browne said, recounting the call. “Every project that was listed for delay will not be.”
Longer-term, Browne said, his committee and other legislators will work with the administration starting in January to address PennDOT’s worsening financial situation. Lawmakers are not sched---
uled to return to Harrisburg until January.
The COVID-19 pandemic and huge reductions in travel greatly reduced PennDOT revenue.
Between 5,000 and 10,000 workers in construction and engineering might lose their jobs if the PennDOT- threatened stoppages are carried out, an industry spokesman told The Morning Call last week.
Got te sm an described a Monday call between Wolf and legislative leaders as “very constructive” and said Wolf pledged to “move what needs to be moved around to assure that projects will not be put on hold.”
Kensinger said the contact with lawmakers about PennDOT started when “legislative Republicans asked the governor to fix the problem” created when language that would let PennDOT borrow money was not included in a budget-related bill passed by the General Assembly on Nov. 20.
But there continued to be sharp disagreement Monday over state government’s reaction to PennDOT’s financial crisis.
On Nov. 20, when lawmakers approved a pandemic-altered, seven-month state budget, some Republicans said they were surprised by a last-minute notice from PennDOT that it needed to borrow $600 million.
Approval for the borrowing was not included in the budget.
Republican Sen. Kim Ward of Westmoreland County subsequently said the sequence of events seemed orchestrated to put lawmakers “over a barrel” to approve borrowing as the only wayto avoid thousands of layoffs.
But PennDOT Secretary Yassmin Gramian of told Ward her agency has been publicizing its financial problems for much of the year.
In a Monday email, PennDOT Communications Director Erin Waters-Trasatt said the initial version of the budget-related bill included language to give PennDOT authority to borrow $600 million.
Waters-Trasatt said House Republican leaders had the language “stripped out of the initial fiscal code draft during the budget approval process.”
Both Browne and Gottesman said the assertion was not accurate.
Browne said lawmakers cannot issue approval for state agency borrowing without having attested to the need for the money. The Wolf administration, Browne said, was not involved in the Legislature’s conversations about verifying that need.
“Right now, the only amount we can attest to is a need for is $300 million,” Browne said.
Gottesman said the language described by Penn DOT was never in the budget-related bill.