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Democrats might pass Republican bill Tuesday so state workers can receive pay.
HARRISBURG — State budget negotiators expressed frustration at their lack of progress Sunday following a closed-door, two-hour meeting that ended with the sides as far apart as ever.
Any hopes of a breakthrough in the standoff, now entering its second month, were dashed after high-ranking lawmakers drove away in disappointment from Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell’s official residence along the Susquehanna River in Harrisburg.
Rendell spokesman Ken Snyder said the Republicans were “demanding, not negotiating.”
“The Republican version of give and take is we give and they take, and that’s just not going to work,” Snyder said.
Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware, said Democrats presented him and his colleagues with what he described as a 13-page “must-have list” of items they insist be included in the final budget. Republicans said paying for all those items would require about $1.6 billion in new taxes, and they are determined not to agree to increase the personal income tax or sales tax rates.
“It didn’t move us closer to a resolution,” Pileggi told reporters afterward. “In some ways, some of the positions they took made it more difficult for us to come to a resolution.”
He characterized discussions as being at a “standstill, leaning in a negative direction.”
A spokeswoman for House Appropriations Chairman Dwight Evans, who is spearheading talks for legislative Democrats, said the document could be more accurately described as a list of potential approaches rather than a must-have list.
Last month, the Democratic-controlled House passed a $29.1 billion spending plan that would require tax increases. In May, the Republican-controlled Senate approved a $27.1 billion proposal that would cut programs and tap reserve funds but not increase taxes.
The next development in the budget battle is expected to occur today, when Democratic leaders in the state House plan to call up the Republican-penned bare-bones budget, which passed the Senate on a party line vote.
Democrats hope to pass that bill on Tuesday without any changes and send it to Rendell. The governor would then use his line-item veto authority to pare it down drastically but leave in place the money and authority to pay state workers.
If that occurs, state employees would be paid several days later and would collect back pay that has accrued for the past month. Some of the state’s tens of thousands of workers haven’t received their full paychecks since July 1.
In an intriguing development, House Minority Leader Sam Smith, R-Jefferson, announced his caucus was throwing its support behind a budget proposal submitted by Rep. Nick Kotik, D-Allegheny, a leader of a group of conservative Democrats.
Smith said his office helped Kotik develop the $27.5 billion proposal, which doesn’t impose any new broad-based taxes. Smith said the line item plan Democrats support will be devastating to county human services programs, but Kotik’s budget will fund them and end the stalemate.
Kotik’s budget is an amendment to the Senate bill, so it’s expected to be debated and voted on today. Kotik did not immediately return telephone messages left at his home and offices on Sunday.
Aides to House Speaker Keith McCall, D-Carbon, said a two-thirds vote in the closely divided House would be required to take up the Kotik amendment.
On Saturday, Rendell told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review he was unwilling to abandon his proposed increase in the personal income tax from 3.07 percent to 3.57 percent.
“It’s not off the table because it’s the best way to get this done,” Rendell said, adding that he will consider other tax options but felt he has cut as much as possible.
The governor described Sunday’s meeting as a last-ditch effort to negotiate a deal.
“We tried very hard to meet them on a spending number,” he told the paper.
House Majority Leader Todd Eachus, D-Luzerne, said Sunday the six-member conference committee, which met on Wednesday and Thursday, would convene again in several days to continue to seek a compromise.