The Legislative Budget and Finance Committee issued a report Wednesday on state-funded grant programs which said $61.8 million of DEP’s budget and $19.4 million in DCNR’s budget were grants to others funded by the General Fund or other state sources of revenue.

For DEP, $61.8 million represents about 12 percent of the funding it receives from all state sources and for DCNR the $19.4 million represents about 6 percent of its state-funded budget. 

At DEP, only about 20 percent of its budget is from the General Fund (after 14 straight years of cuts), 50 percent is from permit fees and any penalties they collect in a given year and 30 percent federal funds.

The largest of the grant programs reported at DEP were: $18.4 million for Municipal Recycling Performance Grants, $13 million for Municipal Recycling Grants, $4.1 million County Conservation District Grants, $3.4 million for Hazardous Sites Cleanup Grants, $3.29 million Alternative Fuels Grants, $3.26 million for Watershed Protection and Restoration,  $1.9 million for “Education, Research and Technical Assistance, $1.8 million for West Nile Virus Control, $1.6 million for Recycling Coordinator Reimbursement, $1.4 million Chesapeake Bay Agriculture Pollution Source Abatement, $1.3 million Clean Water Fund Grants and $1.1 million for Household Hazardous Waste Collection.

The largest of the grant programs reported at DCNR were: $5.1 million Payments In Lieu Of Taxes, $3.7 million Grants for Local Recreation, $3.3 million Grants For Local Land Trusts, $2.5 million Annual Fixed Charges- Forest Lands, $1.7 million Heritage Parks Grants and $1.3 million Community Conservation Grants.

As in all budgets, the size of the state investment indicates the priorities of those making the budgets.

These figures summarized grants from FY 2015-16 appropriations through the end of January 2017 as reported by the agencies to the PennWATCH website.

PennWATCH defines grant payments as “all payments made by the state to political subdivisions, individuals, institutions and organizations for which no direct services are rendered to the state.”

A copy of the report is available online.

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[Posted: March 24, 2017]

3/27/2017