HARRISBURG - The state House on Wednesday night approved a $27.15 billion budget for the fiscal year that begins Friday, setting the stage for Gov. Corbett to sign the document into law before the official deadline.
Corbett got most of what he wanted - deep spending cuts, no new taxes on natural gas or anything else - but only after his administration pushed through a last-minute Senate measure to shift control of billions in welfare funding from the legislature to his administration.
His welfare secretary said budget needs necessitated the change. "We have a savings target to meet, and we can't wait months and months to do it," Gary Alexander told The Inquirer Wednesday night.
But the measure set off alarms among advocates for the poor, who portrayed it as a power grab by the executive branch that would shred the safety net for hundreds of thousands of people - most of them women and children - who depend on government assistance.
Richard Weishaupt, a lawyer with Community Legal Services in Philadelphia, said past administrations had been given temporary authority over a narrow range of welfare services, but nothing so sweeping as what the Corbett administration is seeking.
"It is unprecedented that a state agency is given this kind of discretion without any checks and balances," Weishaupt said.
Alexander said that the change was not meant to circumvent public input - and that the administration would make certain that the public and those affected by any changes, got a chance to weigh in.
"Anything we do will be done in an open fashion, with stakeholder input and with public comment," he said. "We wouldn't do it any other way."
He added: "The executive branch never has blanket authority to make law."
Alexander said that Pennsylvania's rule-making process can be long and drawn out and that the change would simply let his department speed things up, particularly as it tries to make the hundreds of millions in cuts that next year's budget will require.
He said he could not yet say what changes in benefits, if any, the department would make.
"The budget hasn't even passed yet," Alexander said as the House debated the measure Wednesday night. "Until then, we won't be able to make a definitive statement."
The amendment to the welfare code would let the welfare department change benefit rates, including reducing cash assistance payments, and increase co-payments for child care and health care.
