Legal News

City Budget Delay in Harrisburg Costs Law Department $1.3 Million

By Brian Harris

By Amaris Elliott-Engel
Of the Legal Staff

Without approval from Harrisburg for a city sales tax and pension recalculation bill, Mayor Michael A. Nutter said City Hall is going forward with $20 million in spending cuts because it expects to lose that much in projected revenues and savings in August and September.

Cuts include $1.3 million that the city Law Department would have used to pay for outside legal counsel, as well as delaying this year's Police Department cadet class to save $3.2 million as well as several other cuts, according to an announcement Nutter made today.

No independently elected officials running city departments like the First Judicial District or the District Attorney's Office have been asked to make cuts yet, Everett Gillison, deputy mayor for public safety, said.

The state House of Representatives, controlled by Democrats, has approved the bill city officials said they need to have passed into law in order to avoid laying off almost 1,000 police officers and almost 200 firefighters and closing all libraries and recreation centers, among other drastic cuts to government services.

Nutter was careful to not directly criticize Senate Republicans, who have not yet passed the legislation.

But Nutter said the city needs the Senate to pass the bill immediately and without attaching any amendments that would kick the bill back to the House of Representatives.

"We are not asking for two cents from Harrisburg," Nutter said. "We are asking for two tools to help ourselves."

Nutter said he did not expect the city to get an extension on the deadline set for the end of the month for the city to prepare a new five-year balanced budget, which will involve severe cuts in spending if the city doesn't have state approval to increase revenues via taxes and pension recalculations.

Full post as published by The Legal Intelligencer Blog on August 17, 2009 (boomark / email).