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Finally and officially, the 2009-10 state budget concluded on Friday, October 9, 2009. The State
Senate, by vote of 42-7, passed the budget plan that was approved in the State House two days earlier. Governor Rendell
added his signature to the budget and tax bills Friday night concluding, for the most part, the budget struggle that began
last February.
Several of you wanted to know how individual State Senators and State Representatives cast their
votes on the budget bill. Here’s a link to the October 9 Senate roll call vote on the budget
bill: http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/RC/Public/rc_view_action2.cfm?sess_yr=2009&sess_ind=0&rc_body=S&rc_nbr=324Here’s a link to the October 7 House roll call vote on the budget bill: http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/RC/Public/rc_view_action2.cfm?sess_yr=2009&sess_ind=0&rc_body=H&rc_nbr=916Please bear in mind that there are a number of moving pieces—companion bills—that also
make up the overall state budget. This includes a bill (or bills) to raise revenues and bills that spell out in more
detail how money in the budget is to be spent. This is noted only to point out that some other key votes also take
place that affect the makeup of an overall state budget.
We have also been asked to provide some further
context for this year’s state budget since many people have observed that these have been the most difficult circumstances
for a state budget in two generations. Consider these tidbits:
• The 2009-10 state
budget provides for $400 million less in state spending that the previous year.
•
This is the first state budget in more than 40 years to go down in total spending from the prior year.
•
Due to the recession, the state lost $3.2 billion in anticipated revenue during the 2008-09 fiscal year which is the major
reason why the 2009-10 budget became so contentious. In just the first quarter of 2009, the revenue loss was the deepest
ever recorded in the state.
• Nationwide, a gap of more than $168 billion in lost
revenues had to be bridged to balance all 2010 state budgets. California’s deficit alone was bigger than
Pennsylvania’s entire budget.
• Library funding remained level or was cut only
slightly in a few states such as Connecticut and Oklahoma. But in most states, library advocates had to mount strong
campaigns to moderate proposed deep cuts. Just looking at state funding in some of the larger states, we see that New
York libraries were cut by $8 million (8%); Ohio libraries were cut by $84 million (11%) but lower tax collections overall
may translate later in the year to greater funding losses in the 25-30% range; Florida libraries have been cut by a total
of $11 million over two years (33%.) New Jersey libraries were reduced overall by 12%; California’s public library formula
was not cut this year after a 7-year decline from $56 million to level-funding at $13 million (76% loss); and Illinois reduced
grants to public libraries, school libraries, and regional systems by 50%.
Yes, the final budget for Pennsylvania’s
libraries is hardly reason to celebrate. Here’s a chart comparing last year with this year: http://www.palibraries.org/associations/9291/files/St%20budgets%20compared%20Oct%209.pdfYet, we know that our unified advocacy played a big role in scuttling bills that would have cut
the public library subsidy by 54%, and would have completely eliminated all programs funded through the Library Access and
Electronic Library Catalog line items. There is no doubt that your voices helped to prevent this calamity.
Thank you for all that you did during this struggle. Let’s try to take a bit of rest and then redouble
our efforts to minimize the damage this year as best we can, and begin anew the work toward improving services and funding
in the years ahead.
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