June 29, 2009

 

BRADFORD COUNTY-- Pennsylvania's budget is due Tuesday night at midnight- and it doesn't look like it will come in on time.
     Bradford County Commissioner Mark Smith is already planning for a late budget- and he's not optimistic it will be good when it finally passes.
     Smith met with Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell last week and expressed his concerns regarding children and youth services: That’s because it's the largest chunk of human services they provide and the most expensive.
     You might remember the county already shut down a few county-wide daycare facilities when they heard there'd be cuts there.
     Smith says Rendell seemed to be in favor of continuing that funding- but if something changes:
     “The state has been doing this to the county for years. You have all these programs you tell us to administer, you tell us you're going to pay for them and then you don't. We don’t want that to continue- obviously so we're going to fight for every dollar we can,” Smith said.
     Smith is also worried about hundreds of state troopers who could be laid off.
     He says that would hurt public safety in the Northern Tier.
     “A lot of places in our county that's all they have, and I can't foresee how that would even work. I mean we need the state troopers.  The area that they cover here is so large and there's already so few of them to cover the area that we have so I’m not sure how realistic that would be for the safety of the residents of our county,” Smith added.
     Rendell says he's prepared to go as long as it takes until an agreement is reached.
     He says Pennsylvanians will not notice many changes if anything on Wednesday when many segments of state governments lose the ability to pay for things.