Harrisburg, Pa. – Legislators and the governor brokered a deal that ended the state-budget impasse Monday night, and state workers will return to the job after nearly 24,000 people were sent home without pay.
Scores of state parks, state-run museums and driver’s license offices around the state were shuttered Monday on orders of Gov. Ed Rendell after a partisan deadlock held up the budget nine days into the new fiscal year.
“This is an agreement where all sides can say that they achieved some of their goals, and that’s probably a good budget agreement,” Rendell said at a late-evening news conference, declaring himself “very satisfied with where we came out.”
The deal addresses some of Rendell’s health-care and energy initiatives but will not impose the surcharge on electricity use the governor had sought, said Sen. Vince Fumo, ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee.
“I rate it good,” he said. “It’s a win-win for everybody.”
Without a budget, the state had lost the authority to spend money on “noncritical” services and employees. Highway maintenance, document-processing services and a range of permitting and licensing functions were curtailed or stopped altogether.
Many residents were caught by surprise.
“So what am I supposed to do?” asked an angry LaTanya Anderson, who took an hour- long bus trip to the downtown Philadelphia driver’s license office. “I can’t believe I came all the way down here.”
At issue was a spending plan expected to be around $27 billion and a list of Rendell’s priorities, including the sprawling energy policy, that he had insisted the Legislature approve before he signed a budget.
The state’s critical services – such as health care for the poor, state police patrols, emergency response and prisons – were being maintained by the 52,000 workers whose jobs were designated as critical. Those workers continued to work and were paid as usual.
The state’s five slots-only casinos, which employ about 3,500 people, had been threatened by the furloughs but won a reprieve thanks to a court order Sunday.
The Rendell administration lowered the reported total of employees on furlough, from more than 24,000 to 23,562. Their wages are $3.5 million a day, according to Rendell’s Office of Administration.
