March 17th, 2009

The Associated Press reports in the York Daily Record:

“Republican legislative leaders are urging Gov. Ed Rendell to allow input from legislators on how to spend Pennsylvania’s share of federal economic stimulus money or risk missing a midsummer spending plan deadline.

“It will facilitate our joint goal of starting successful budget deliberations earlier than in the past,” Sens. Joseph Scarnati, Dominic Pileggi and Jake Corman—the top three Republican Senate leaders—wrote in a letter delivered to the Democratic governor Monday.”

House GOP leaders have asked Rendell to send them a  new budget, saying the first one he proposed is now irrelevant because the stimulus pacakage had not yet been passed by Congress.  Up until this point, Rendell hasn’t said much about what role legislators will have in approving and allocating the billions of dollars that Pennsylvania and local governments are expected to recieve.

“Earlier this month, Rendell did not dispute that he must seek legislative approval to use much of the money. But he sounded no note of urgency, and warned that the federal government has dictated the terms of how the money must be spent, and left even his administration with little decision-making power.

“Probably in July we’re going to have to get appropriation authority for a lot of this money and, again, the Legislature can work with us to help us with the decisions that are made,” Rendell said.”