HARRISBURG - After weeks of internal debate, the Rendell administration yesterday proposed to lop $500 million in spending from 229 programs in order to help balance the recession-ravaged budget for the forthcoming fiscal year.
The latest rounds of cuts, which Gov. Rendell described as "significant, severe, and painful," come on top of the administration's push to raise income taxes by more than 16 percent to fill a $3.2 billion budget hole.
In all, funding for 47 state-run or subsidized programs - from museums to county fairs and cancer research - would be eliminated. Many other items, while not ended outright, would be deeply slashed by Rendell's ax, including funding for mental health and homeless services, college grants, and job-training programs.
"There is not a thing in here that doesn't hurt," Rendell said. "There are virtually no good cuts."
In the Philadelphia region, the cuts could affect a number of marquee institutions, including Temple University and the Franklin Institute.
Rendell identified the reductions five days before the July 1 start of Pennsylvania's new fiscal year as he and Republican legislative leaders continue to posture while getting no closer to reaching a compromise fiscal blueprint.
Republicans quickly criticized the cuts as misleading and argued that even with them, Rendell wanted the state to spend more overall in fiscal 2009-10 than it did this year.
"The key is not this make-believe math where you have reductions but you increase spending at the same time. The key is how much can we afford in Pennsylvania to spend in the upcoming budget," said Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R., Delaware). "We don't think we can spend more than we have, and the governor thinks we can."
Rendell said such comparisons were misleading because the state is required to pay for such things as the increasing costs of state prisons and welfare.
The governor for weeks has said he would propose the $500 million in cuts above the half-billion dollars he had already slashed in spending this current fiscal year.
Rendell released the cuts at a Capitol news conference yesterday.
They range from big-ticket items - a proposed $37 million cut for medical assistance programs for the poor and elderly - to $7,000 for an official portrait of the late Lt. Gov. Catherine Baker Knoll. Aides said the governor would raise the funds for the oil painting privately.
In between, Rendell proposed cutting programs as disparate as black-fly spraying to teen pregnancy prevention and education programs for organ donations.
Rendell proposed to shave $41 million off what the state gives to Pennsylvania State University, while Temple University would get nearly $21 million less. Both figures are cuts of nearly 13 percent from what Rendell first proposed in February.
Earlier this year, Temple cut its budget by $40 million to limit a tuition increase to 2.9 percent. But the latest cuts in state subsidies might force the university to reevaluate that, said Ken Lawrence Jr., senior vice president for government, community, and public affairs.
Left intact, however, is Rendell's proposed 7 percent funding increase for public schools. He reiterated yesterday that he would not waiver on that level of funding.
As a group, museums would be among the hardest hit.
The Franklin Institute, the Academy of Natural Sciences, the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, and the African American Museum in Philadelphia, as well as five other big institutions elsewhere, would lose their entire state subsidies.
Dennis Wint, president of the Franklin Institute, which was expected to receive $683,000 in state support, said the loss "would be devastating."
Wint said yesterday there had been no time for detailed analysis, but "we would review everything we do." At risk, he added, would be free school admissions, free community nights, scholarships, and programs for underserved areas.
Bill Brown, president of the Academy of Natural Sciences, where $419,000 of state aid is at risk, said his institution has already reduced salaries, eliminated positions, and frozen hiring given the economic crisis.
"We're down to the point where there is nowhere to go but reduce staff," he added.
Public libraries would see an additional 10 percent reduction under the proposal, bringing state subsidies to about $66 million.
Glenn Miller, executive director of the Pennsylvania Library Association, said the cuts could mean that some branches shut down an extra day or two, or reduce hours at a time when more people are out of work and need access to information and computers.
"Libraries are the first responders for people out of work," he said. "Where do they think people go to work on their resume and find jobs?"
County-based mental health and mental retardation programs would see additional cuts, as steep as 10.5 percent.
County commissioners are particularly concerned about $10 million in proposed cuts to programs such as drug and alcohol services.
"Folks have to be served whether you have the money or not," said Brinda Carroll Panyak, deputy director of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania.
The cuts are needed, Rendell said, to enact a balanced budget as required by state law. But they only get the state part of the way there.
Also needed, he insists, is more revenue. He is urging lawmakers to approved a three-year hike in the state income tax, from 3.07 percent to 3.57 percent.
Otherwise, new cuts - even deeper than the ones proposed yesterday - would be needed, the governor added.
Republican leaders who control the Senate have said they would not consider such a broad-based tax hike.
Contact staff writer Mario F. Cattabiani at 717-787-5990 or mcattabiani@phillynews.com.
Staff writer Angela Couloumbis contributed to this article.
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