Editorial: County meetings canceled, latest casualty of Pennsylvania budget battle

The Pennsylvania budget impasse isn’t the gift that keeps on giving. It’s the thief that keeps on taking.

The three-month-long delay in a state spending plan is a dammed-up financial river that has rippling repercussions throughout the agencies downstream.

Counties are conduits for money from the state to put into many vital services. Without a budget, that money isn’t flowing, prompting counties to take action — or more appropriately, to stop taking action. There have been hiring freezes. Offices have been shuttered. Services have been stopped. Employees have been furloughed.

All of that is, unfortunately, something Pennsylvanians have come to expect from the stubborn budget standoffs that seem to affect the state with clockwork regularity.

But now it is going beyond money and services. It’s diving into the way government is interacting with the people.

Westmoreland County commissioners aren’t meeting this week.

Why? They say there is no point without the budget.

“This is not just theater; it’s a real situation,” Chairman Sean Kertes said. “This isn’t just a public meeting. It’s authorizing the payment of bills and awarding contracts.”

And without the money being piped in from the state, the county can’t pay those bills or enter into the contracts.

The commissioners really don’t have much to do at either their Tuesday agenda session or Thursday voting meeting without the state keeping up with its responsibilities.

But this isn’t all about funding.

Public meetings may be when payment obligations are discussed and approved, but that isn’t all they do. During meetings, people can hear from their government. They can question decisions. They can raise concerns. They can see the way their leaders arrive at decisions and express support or challenge the process.

And when the meetings don’t happen because the fractured state government can’t do its most basic job, that ability is interrupted.

It is bad enough that Armstrong County senior citizens aren’t going to get meals because of this impasse. It is bad enough Westmoreland workers are being sent home as offices are scaling back employees. It is bad enough spending in multiple counties is being cut to the bone.

But now the budget impasse is cutting the people out of the process of government, and that should not be tolerated.

End the impasse, Harrisburg. Pass the budget. Get Pennsylvania back in business.