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Lawrence County official speaks of impact if Pa. plan fails to pass
Commissioners are to meet with the county’s fiscal team to discuss how they would handle a shutdown.
NEW CASTLE, Pa. — If Gov. Ed Rendell and the Pennsylvania Legislature do not pass a budget by June 30, it will have a “severe, immediate impact” on Lawrence County, according to county Commissioner Chairman Steve Craig.
Craig stated at Thursday’s caucus that the county would “have difficulty keeping our doors open for more than a week” if the flow of state dollars stopped, because county government operates with about 75 percent state money.
The county jail and the E-911 dispatch center are legally required to stay open. But other county offices and agencies could close down.
He pointed out that some of them, such as the courts, Children Services, Domestic Relations and Mental Health/Mental Retardation receive some or even most of their funds from the state.
He said there are other considerations, such as the requirement that defendants be adjudicated within time limits or be set free.
Craig said commissioners will meet with “our fiscal team” in the next 10 days to determine how to handle a state shutdown if it occurs.
He said they will have to figure out how to operate in a situation where there is no state money coming in.
“I don’t know if we can get a line of credit,” he said.
Even if county offices close, there would be unemployment compensation to pay out of the county’s insurance for this purpose.
After the meeting, Craig said that even if the county chose to use its cash reserves of less than $10 million to keep offices operating, the money would last for only a month.
Even if that happened, he said, there are no guarantees of when the state would reimburse the money.
According to a Thursday Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story, Rendell has made $500 million in additional cuts to bring his 2009-10 budget proposal to $28.9 billion. The figure is still far from the $27.3 billion being proposed by Republicans, and many legislators do not expect an agreement to be reached until July.