As promised last week, Gov. Rendell this week released a list of cuts totaling $500 million to his proposed 2009-10 fiscal year budget, including cuts to environmental programs in the departments of Agriculture, Environmental Protection, Conservation and Natural Resources and other agencies.

The additional cuts were also made to the PA Center for Environmental Education and the repayment of money borrowed from the Underground Storage Tank Indemnification Fund in 2002 was zeroed out.

Combined with more than $500 million in spending eliminated during the current fiscal year, plus other reductions that he previously announced to his projected budget, the Governor has now trimmed $2 billion from state spending during the current national economic downturn.

“Like so many of the cutbacks that we have made before, these reductions are painful to me and I understand they will be painful to the people who benefit from the affected programs. But the reductions are necessary,” Gov. Rendell said. “I want Pennsylvanians to know that we continue trying to spread the burden of balancing our budget as fairly and evenly as possible.

“This proposal cuts or completely eliminates nearly 80 percent of all General Fund budget lines from their current level in the budget that was signed into law last July. Twenty-six percent of all budget lines are completely eliminated and of the remaining appropriations that we propose to fund, 70 percent will be reduced from their 2008-09 enacted budget levels,” the Governor said. “We cut further, accepted or partially accepted 53 percent of the cuts that were proposed in Senate Bill 850.”

Overall, 229 line items would be impacted by the latest round of spending reductions. Compared to the current fiscal year, the Governor has now cut three out of every four line items, totally eliminating 163 of them and reducing another 328.

While making the cuts, the Governor preserved funding for K-12 education, economic development programs that are crucial to helping the state pull out of the recession, and key social safety net programs. He avoided actions that could lead to higher property taxes at the local level, or the elimination of services to the most vulnerable citizens of the state.

Here are the specific additional cuts to the departments of Agriculture, Environmental Protection, Conservation and Natural Resources--

$219,000 - General Government Operations

$114,000 - Transfer to Conservation District Fund

$100,000 - Transfer to Nutrient Management Fund

$100,000 - Farm-School Nutrition Initiative (zeroed out)

$12,000 - Agricultural Conservation Easement Administration

$8,000 - Nutrient Management Administration

$2.1 million - General Government Operations

$2.1 million - Environmental Protection Operations

$1.7 million - Black Fly Control

$1.1 million - Environmental Program Management

$28,000 - West Nile Virus

$19,000 - Chesapeake Bay Pollution Abatement

-- Conservation & Natural Resources - $4 million
$1.4 million - State Park Operations

$1 million - State Forest Operations

$1 million - Forest Pest Management

$512,000 - General Government Operations

In the last six years, $784 million in environmental funding has been diverted to balance the budget or pay for programs that could not get funding on their own. If these new cuts are included in the 2009-10 budget, it means that $938 million, almost a billion dollars, of environmental funding has been diverted to other programs.(Pa Environment Digest 12/29/09)

Here's the list of major funding diversions in the last six years--

-- $174 million from the DCNR Oil and Gas Lease Fund to the General Fund in 2009;

-- $324 million intended to support wastewater plant operations over the last six years to balance the budget;

-- $100 million in 2002 from the Underground Storage Tank cleanup insurance fund to balance the budget (although this is slowly being repaid over 10 years);

-- $52.7 million “one-time” diversion from the Keystone Recreation, Parks and Conservation Fund in 2006 to balance the budget;

-- $50 million in 2007 and 2008 from the Environmental Stewardship Fund, which supports mine reclamation and watershed restoration, to fund the Hazardous Sites Cleanup Program because there was no agreement on how to fund that program;

-- $50 million in 2007 and 2008 from the Environmental Stewardship Fund to pay debt service on the Growing Greener II bond issue and taking funding away from restoration projects each year for the next 25 years – reflecting a pattern of only environmental programs being required to address their own bond debt service;

-- $15 million from the Recycling Fund in 2008 to balance the budget; and

-- $18.4 million put into budgetary reserve in 2008-09 from the Department of Environmental Protection and Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

Compounding the impact of all these proposed environmental funding cuts is the fact that Growing Greener II funding will run out next year leaving little or no state funding for mine reclamation, watershed restoration, oil and gas well plugging and other Growing Greener programs.

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