CLEARFIELD – Clearfield County continues to be impacted by the ongoing state budget stalemate in Harrisburg.
Children & Youth Services is the county’s largest agency that’s suffering from the stalemate, said Commissioner Joan Robinson-McMillen, chair.
According to her, the county has continued to pay its share owed to providers. It’s paying both the county and state share to foster parents, she said.
Larger providers have agreed to “weather the storm.” “We went through this before in 2009 under Gov. [Ed] Rendell,” said Robinson-McMillen.
“It didn’t go quite this long. We’ve moved into all new territory now. We’ve had to move monies out of the general fund to make payroll for CYS.”
She said a share of the CYS caseworkers’ pay is covered by the state. She said the county will continue to fund services, but payroll and funding retirement will be the priority.
“At the same time, we’ve started working on the 2016 budget. It’s an especially difficult task though without a state budget,” said Robinson-McMillen.
“Both sides feel very passionately about what it is they want to accomplish in Harrisburg. However, they aren’t seeing how this is impacting the counties and the families within those counties.”
Commissioner Mark B. McCracken said he was going to be even “more blunt” in getting “straight to the point.”
He said the county will continue to keep its responsibilities. However, he said it was time for the state legislators and governor to “get down to business.”
“They need to compromise. There seems to be no effort to work to a middle ground,” he said. He noted counties, school districts and critical services are all suffering due to the ongoing budget stalemate.
After last week’s vote, McCracken said he thought they would “break the log jam.” He added, “Instead, they conducted a vote and closed down for one-and-a-half weeks.”
“They need to sequester themselves in the capitol until the budget is passed with the key being negotiation and compromise from the governor on down.”
Commissioner John A. Sobel concurred with his fellow commissioners. However, he raised concerns that he felt after last week’s vote both sides were even more entrenched, which wasn’t a good sign.
“I hope my sources are wrong,” said Sobel.
