Fears that Rendell's budget shortchanges needy

HARRISBURG - Battered by deep cuts last year, groups that offer services to the disabled, the elderly, and children are wincing at what they see in Gov. Rendell's latest proposed budget.

Rendell, delivering his eighth and final budget address on Tuesday, announced plans to trim some areas that touch the most vulnerable, such as literacy programs and disability payments for people living below the poverty line.

Small though they may be, the proposed reductions - along with the budget's reliance on hundreds of millions in federal recovery funds not yet approved by Congress - strike fear in the hearts of agencies that deliver food, health care, job training, transportation, addiction counseling, and child care to Pennsylvania's neediest.

"Rendell has always avoided hitting the poorest in the state," said Jonathan Stein, chief legal counsel for Philadelphia-based Community Legal Services. "This is contrary to his efforts over the last seven years."

Rendell's $29 billion spending plan contains nips and tucks across the board for most agencies, and no restoration of funding for some departments that took substantial hits last year, such as the Department of Environmental Protection and the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

Not so for basic education, Rendell's signature issue in recent years. In his budget address to the General Assembly, he asked for a 3.7 percent increase in education funding, including an additional $355 million to build on successes of prior years.

But that increase, amid a tightening of purse strings elsewhere, troubles some advocates for low-income children's needs. Not that they oppose more school aid - rather, they worry that it's at the expense of other programs directly affecting children.

Child advocate Cathleen Palm says Rendell's plan misses the connection between a healthy breakfast or a violence-free home and children's performance in school and the likelihood of ending up in prison.

"No one is saying that it's a bad thing to invest in education," said Palm, a child advocate in Berks County who tracks state and federal legislation. "But there is almost an insensitivity to the realities of kids and families. If kids come to school hungry, they won't do well."

Rendell, through a spokesman, defended his plan's commitment to lower-income populations and its investment in education.

All told, the proposed hikes in education-related spending add up to $483 million, compared with a $548 million increase for services to the disabled, the elderly, and children, Rendell said.

"Education affects everything that we do," said his press secretary, Gary Tuma. "It goes far beyond the benefits of a good education. . . . It has an impact on our crime rate, our economy, and the attractiveness of our state to business because of the skill of our workforce."

Palm and others point to proposed cuts in money the state parcels out to counties to help pay for everything from public transportation to food services to addiction counseling. If Rendell gets his way, these funds will be cut to $25 million, down from $29 million in the current budget and more than $33 million the year before.

And the latest cut comes at a time when higher unemployment is driving up the demand for such aid.

Then there's the hoped-for help from Washington that the proposed budget is counting on: money contained in federal funding bills that may or may not reach President Obama's desk.

"Federal funding, particularly with this Congress, is hard to bank on," said Palm, in an interview minutes after the Senate agreed on a jobs bill - but not on added Medicaid funding that Palm and others had hoped for.

High on Stein's list of hurts is Rendell's proposed $9 million cut in Supplemental Security Income funds - the SSI checks that help 345,000 aged, blind, or disabled Pennsylvanians (including 67,000 children) afford food, clothing, and shelter.

On Feb. 1, SSI recipients saw their monthly checks (typically about $600) dip by $5 to $10, thanks to cuts in the last budget - the one Rendell and the legislature approved in October, 101 days late.

Those SSI cuts, which originated in the Republican-controlled state Senate last year, live on in the Democratic governor's 1,070-page proposal for the fiscal year that starts July 1.

The proposed $5-to-$10 cuts per monthly SSI check barely pay for a couple of large drinks at a Starbucks. But Stein, a veteran advocate for the needy, said the amounts loom large for SSI recipients, all of whom fit the federal definition of poverty: for a family of four, income less than $22,000 a year.

Stein and others are planning a rally at the Capitol on March 16 to call for restoring the SSI funding.

As executive director of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania, Doug Hill represents officeholders. But some of his concerns about the budget echo those of advocates for the needy.

Money for court services is getting cut, he said; so is money for farmlands preservation. And he offers context for what he calls "nominal" increases elsewhere: Funding levels in many categories have stayed flat since 2002.

"It's a bare-bones budget at best," Hill said, adding that his group, too, frets about what Congress will do on federal aid. What if, for example, counties wind up unable to afford programs for children at risk?

"If we are not helping abused kids," Hill said, "that's not tenable."

Then there are libraries. Their funding is nicked by 2 percent in Rendell's plan; last year's 20 percent cut forced many to cut hours and staff.

"It boggles my mind that there is this disconnect about what is education," Glenn Miller, executive director of the Pennsylvania Library Association, said last week.

He bemoaned the slashing of funds for POWER Library, a database that 412 of Pennsylvania's 500 school districts use for everything from teachers' lesson plans to an online encyclopedia for students.

The cuts are coming even as demand for library services is "bursting at the seams," Miller said. "We're all about education and we want to help, but you can't with the legs cut out from under you."

To read Gov. Rendell's proposed state budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1, go to http://go.philly.com/pabudgetEndText