Counties Protest Funding Cuts For State Mandated Programs

County leaders assert state budget decisions are harming local residents

(Harrisburg, PA, November 24) – Leaders of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania (CCAP) gathered in the state capitol today to deliver an urgent message to the state’s leaders, calling upon them to remedy recent actions that have contributed to county budget deficits statewide.

CCAP President and Greene County Commissioner Dave Coder presented remarks on behalf of county taxpayers, as well as county commissioners, council members and county executives from across the state meeting in Hershey this week.

“Our message to state leaders is simple yet very crucial: Please do your part to fund mandates. Stop forcing local property owners to ‘bail out’ the state by passing costs down to the local level,” Coder urged.

Counties are a primary service provider on behalf of the state, administering human services, judicial services, corrections, elections, emergency management and 911, planning, economic development and job training, record keeping and other programs. County leaders contend it is the state’s responsibility to fund the provision of those services at adequate levels.

“County governments are facing a fiscal crisis every bit as severe as the state’s, and in fact decisions made by our state leaders have compounded the problems we face locally,” according to Coder.

He noted the failure of the commonwealth to fund its obligations under Act 57 of 2005, the Full-Time District Attorney’s Act. The act requires counties to employ a district attorney on a full-time basis, and requires the commonwealth to reimburse counties for 65 percent of the cost of that salary.

“Zero dollars were appropriated to fund the state’s district attorney salary obligation for 2008. Statewide, this means county taxpayers must ante more than $100,000 extra dollars per county to fund the commonwealth’s budget obligation,” Coder said. “This hit counties mid-year in their 2008 budgets, causing counties to reallocate funds from other critical programs this year. This omission is also making development of our 2009 budgets needlessly difficult. We had rightly presumed the commonwealth would live up to its statutory obligation, but it simply has not.”

Coder also cited historical under-funding of human service programs as an example of another area where failure to fund these service mandates proportionate to increasing costs has caused strain on local budget resources.

“In the spring, we stood in this very same spot as we stand today, and we warned that counties stood one step away from a domino fiscal effect where an economic downturn could prompt an increased demand for human services – substance abuse services, the abused child or the neighbor with mental illness. The current state of our economy has brought that increased demand, and the dominoes are not falling in the taxpayers’ favor,” Coder said.

Recent adjustments to state agency spending included cuts for flexible funding sources, such as the Human Services Development Fund and behavioral health treatment money. These cuts are having a negative impact on counties and the people they serve.

“The state has touted its budget cuts as a responsible step to avert a larger state fiscal crisis, but behind those cuts are real programs that serve Pennsylvania’s people in need. While the need continues, the funding slows and counties have to find a way to serve the need,” Coder said.

“Our plea, on behalf of our taxpayers, is that the commonwealth figure out how to balance its ledger while meeting the obligations it has created. Cutting spending levels in the state budget by passing costs through to local governments is not responsible budgeting,” Coder said.

“The bottom line, these services have to be provided. The state cutting its share may save state taxpayers money but those same taxpayers are hit when we are forced to raise property taxes to make up the difference,” Coder concluded.

CCAP is a statewide, nonprofit, nonpartisan Association representing the commissioners, chief clerks, administrators, their equivalents in home rule counties and solicitors of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties. The Association serves to strengthen the Pennsylvania counties’ ability to govern their own affairs and improve the well-being and quality of life of their constituents.