There’s no excuse for last-minute budget drama

LIKE COLLEGE STUDENTS cramming for an Accounting 101 final exam, Pennsylvania’s lawmakers stayed up past 1 a.m. Monday in order to reach a budget compromise and avoid feared furloughs.

Bottom line: They barely met today’s deadline, emerging with a $28.2 billion budget that calls for ample borrowing but no broad-based tax increases.

Their 11th-hour strategizing in Harrisburg spared taxpayers a repeat of last year’s budget stalemate, which had prompted a one-day suspension of about one-third the state’s work force, or nearly 24,000 state employees. That early summer shutdown, as you probably remember, inconvenienced people at 117 state parks and historical sites, 71 driver’s license centers and 15 welcome centers.

State employees and residents can breathe a collective sigh of relief this July, knowing they’ll be spared any government gridlock. But if lawmakers are expecting a hearty pat on the back for their nocturnal negotiations, sorry, this won’t be it.

Instead, it seems a fitting time to ask elected officials, “Can’t you do away with the drama and streamline the state’s budget-making process?”

After all, Pennsylvania’s 253 legislators get paid – and paid well, in comparison to other states – to work as full-time public servants. Taxpayers contribute more than $300 million a year so that this legislative body can handle its important, year-round duties. (New Hampshire, by contrast, has only a 45-day legislative session and pays each of its “citizen legislators” a mere $200 per two-year-term.)

Granted, it takes intense effort to put together the Keystone State’s budget and to fine-tune the policy decisions guiding where dollars will be spent. (Education or environment? New tax or belt-tightening?) But, unencumbered by the need to hold second jobs, Pennsylvania’s lawmakers should be able to avoid procrastination and hammer out a spending plan in timely fashion.

Perhaps incentives could spur them to finish the task more promptly. Or, maybe a law could be drafted that would dock legislators’ pay – and the governor’s, too – if they were tardy with a final budget.

In any case, it’s time to do away with any 20th-century mystique of late-night deal making under the Capitol dome. Adopt a get-’er-done attitude.

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