As a Pennsylvania budget impasse stretches into its eighth week, some nonprofits that rely on state funding say the delay is beginning to cause a strain.
The stalemate, combined with recent federal funding cuts and other uncertainty, has "created a very difficult situation for nonprofit human-services agencies," Bobbi Watt Geer, president and CEO of United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania, said in a statement.
"We urge policy makers to recognize that nonprofits are the backbone of the regional human services safety net and need stable funding."
The deadline for passing a budget was June 30. Because the state started its fiscal new year on July 1 without a spending plan, it cannot distribute payments that would normally go to Pennsylvania's 67 counties to cover drug and alcohol addiction services, behavioral health care, homeless assistance, child welfare services and other aid to vulnerable populations.
Normally the state pays counties, and counties in turn contract with private providers — often nonprofits — that provide these services.
"Those funds obviously are not flowing to the counties, and the counties are in a position where they have to identify ways of bridging that gap in terms of funds," said Kyle Kopko, executive director of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania.
Counties have varying levels of reserve funds to draw on, he said, but "many counties are really sounding the alarm that they are going to have to start making very tough decisions soon."
It's not unusual for state officials to miss the June 30 deadline, and the disruptions can have an impact even after a deal is struck. Counties have not been reimbursed for the cost of borrowing money during prior budget impasses, Kopko said.
Payment delays will also impact Pennsylvania school districts and libraries.
In an email to its providers earlier this month, Allegheny County's Department of Human Services said it did not anticipate disruptions to the payments it makes to providers. But County Human Services Director Erin Dalton warned that "the longer the budget remains unresolved — and the longer it takes for the state to begin disbursing payments once a budget is passed — the greater the risk of future disruption becomes."
Adult education organization Literacy Pittsburgh gets roughly half of its budget from state and federal funds, said CEO Carey Harris. The organization helps people who are learning English and other adults who are earning a high school credential.
"Our federal funds will not be released until there is an adopted state budget, and that budget is long overdue," Harris wrote in an email to WESA.
Her organization's clients, she said, "are counting on us and the PA General Assembly to adopt a budget so they can continue their education and build their families and futures in this region."
The impasse is also a concern for Homewood Children's Village, which aims to assist kids in Pittsburgh's Homewood neighborhood and connects youth and families to services that include mental healthcare, child care, and after school programs.
While the organization doesn't get much direct state funding itself, President and CEO Walter Lewis said the budget stalemate impacts many of the partners it works with.
"Because of the ecosystem we exist in, it is a big deal," he said. "It just creates a lot of uncertainty."
While Allegheny County is continuing to pay human service contractors, not every county is doing so, said Samea Kim, vice president of legal and public affairs at the Pennsylvania Council of Children, Youth, and Family Services. The organization represents providers that offer services in child welfare, juvenile justice, and children's behavioral health.
"These funding delays make it all the more difficult for them to be able to deliver these really important services to Pennsylvania's communities that really need them the most," Kim said.
After the Democrat-led House passed a spending plan in July, the GOP-controlled Senate largely gutted the proposal. And last week, when the Senate returned for its first session since the impasse began, it passed a budget bill of its own without buy-in from Democrats.
Gov. Josh Shapiro said Tuesday he's still in near-constant contact with House and Senate leaders about the budget.
"Now is a moment where both sides need to make some tough choices. Compromise is hard, especially in a polarized environment that we find ourselves in," Shapiro told reporters at an event in Harrisburg.
Renewed debates around public transit funding last week put Philadelphia's system in the spotlight. Service cuts for SEPTA are set to go into effect this weekend, one day before some 50,000 children, many of whom rely on buses and trains to get to school, return to class. But Shapiro said transit agencies everywhere will struggle if a budget deal isn't soon agreed upon.
"That worry, that concern is what is keeping me at the table, trying to bridge the differences between the House and the Senate and find common ground so we can stop these cuts from going into effect," Shapiro said.
Budget negotiators have said for weeks that talks were "progressing," but leaders from both parties have yielded to finger-pointing: Senate Pro Tempore Kim Ward (R-Westmoreland) this week called SEPTA's impending cuts "a manufactured crisis" by the agency and Democrats, while House Appropriations chair Jordan Harris (D-Philly) said the Senate's plan wasn't a genuine attempt at compromise.
It's "not a serious budget plan," he said.
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