‘Very serious situation.’ Centre County commissioners urge PA lawmakers to pass budget

With Centre County using hundreds of thousands of dollars from its reserves each week as the state budget impasse continues, commissioners passed a resolution Tuesday that urged state lawmakers to come to an agreement.

The resolution urges the governor and state legislature to come together to pass a budget that, once approved, will distribute crucial funding to counties for the services they run. The delay has led to several counties having to cut programming, furlough employees and more.

Centre County officials believe the county will be able to approve its own budget by the Dec. 31 deadline without cutting any human services programs or furloughing its roughly 570 employees. But to do so, it’s spending about $800,000 per week from the county’s reserve funds, Commissioner Mark Higgins said.

“The budget impasse in Harrisburg affects counties, it affects municipalities, school districts, service agencies and many more,” Higgins said. “It’s a very serious situation, and we strongly urge the legislature to get together, hash it out, compromise, come up with a budget — even if it’s 100-and-some days late. A lot of desperate people need those services and need those funds.”

Other counties across the commonwealth have passed similar resolutions, which was provided by the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania.

The budget, which was originally due by June 30, is late by 119 days and counting as of Tuesday’s meeting due to ongoing funding allocation disputes between the Democrat-controlled Pennsylvania House of Representatives and the Republican-controlled state Senate.

While the House approved a $50.3 billion budget proposal at the beginning of the month, Spotlight PA reported that it likely wouldn’t pass the Senate. The Senate also put forth a $47.9 billion budget proposal on Oct. 21 that is not likely to pass the House.

Meanwhile, the federal government shutdown is also still in place, and a bill to reopen it was shot down Tuesday by the U.S. Senate.

These combined budget delays, especially the state’s, have made the 2026 budgeting process hard on the commissioners. The budget is being based on flat funding, or the concept that they would receive the same levels of funding as last year — something Commissioner Steve Dershem said is “not a good budgeting practice.”

Making it to the year’s end without cuts or furloughs would be significant because on Jan. 1, the county can take out a tax and revenue anticipation note for an advance on the county’s property tax, then pay it back in May when the property taxes hit, as explained by the commissioners at their State of the County event last month.

Even if the county does take an advance on the property taxes though, Dershem warned that the additional funds wouldn’t last forever, and that there could be dire consequences if the state’s budget impasse ends up extending much further beyond the beginning of the year.

“We are required by the state to have our budget at the beginning of the year, theirs is obviously [due] in the middle of the year, and therein lies the conflict — we don’t have the resources to make it to next July, and that would be painful for not only us, but a lot of folks in the commonwealth,” Dershem said.

Commissioner Amber Concepcion agreed, saying that there specifically would be a devastating impact on “economically disadvantaged” school districts that need state funding the most.

“Each school district has an aid ratio that is correlated with the level of economic need in that district, so the districts that have the greatest economic need have the highest percentage of their budget that is state funding,” Concepcion said. “[Those districts] are the least-able to make it through a prolonged impasse like this without state funding coming in.”

The State College Area School District’s school board also passed a resolution at their meeting on Monday that called for state legislators to come together and pass a budget, with school board president Amy Bader urging officials to “put politics aside” and “get done the things that need to get done.”

While Centre County may have funds to last to the end of the year, that’s all it may have the funds to do. When asked if there would be extra services provided to residents in lieu of SNAP benefits ending on Nov. 1, the commissioners shared that there’s only enough money left to remain operational.

Instead, the commissioners asked that people support local nonprofits.

“We would urge Centre County citizens to support your local human service agencies, food banks, etc.,” Higgins said. “We’re heading into the holiday season but for a lot of people this is becoming a very tough time for them.”

Moving forward, updates about the county’s budget process may be shared at future commissioners meetings, which take place at 10 a.m. each Tuesday at the Willowbank Building.