Apr 10, 2011 By Marc Levyassociated Press 5 min read

A GOP senator’s exchange with Gov. Tom Corbett’s top budget-maker may have provided the best hints about the future direction of the state spending debate currently dominating the agenda in Republican-controlled Harrisburg.

Sen. John Gordner, R-Columbia, whose district includes Bloomsburg University, expressed concern during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing last month about Corbett’s proposed cuts to Pennsylvania’s 14 state-owned universities. He also confessed to surprise that Corbett’s spending plan didn’t find what he called significant savings in the state’s broad range of social and human service programs.

With a growing group of legislators now unhappy over Corbett’s other proposed cuts to public schools — as well as the four state-related universities, Penn State, Pitt, Temple and Lincoln — the search is on for the money to at least soften the blow. The challenge, in perhaps the tightest budget year that any sitting legislator has faced, is scraping up the money.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Jake Corman, R-Centre, calls it the “$2 billion question.”

All told, Corbett’s proposed cuts to public schools and universities add up to more than $1.6 billion, and some people count cuts totaling closer to $2 billion.

That includes slashing at least $625 million, or more than 50 percent, of state aid going this year to the 18 universities and more than $1 billion going to public schools, with many of the deepest cuts targeted toward the state’s poorest school districts.

The Legislature’s choices will be narrowed by two key demands laid down by Corbett. He wants a budget that requires no tax increases and spends no more than the $27.3 billion he proposed for the 2011-12 fiscal year that starts July 1.

The first — and most painless — source of money could be stronger tax collections from a recovering economy that deliver as much as several hundred million more dollars than Corbett has projected.

Failing that, the Department of Public Welfare, with its massive, $11.2 billion proposed budget that holds together the state’s safety net for the poor and disabled, seems to be emerging as the next target. Corman said Senate Republicans will look across all of the state’s agencies for savings, but acknowledged that the Department of Public Welfare must be scrutinized.

“It’s not going to be easy,” Corman said. “I don’t think there’s any line item that we can just grab, and say, ‘Hey, there’s $200 million.’ But clearly (the department is) going to be an area we’re going to have some discussion on and see what we can find.”

House Republicans have put forward a group of bills designed to cut the state’s costs by cracking down on perceived fraud in the programs. However, they are unable to say how much money their ideas could save, and Corbett himself has downplayed the immediate impact of his own administration’s efforts to attack fraud by stepping up investigations.

“I would hope we’re going to be able to find that (savings), I believe we’re going to be able to find that, but I would not balance a budget on anticipated” savings, Corbett said in a press conference last month.

Then he added: “Investigations take some time.”

Responding to Gordner, Corbett’s budget secretary, Charles Zogby, said the administration has not had enough time to find savings in the Department of Public Welfare’s budget. Under Corbett’s proposal, the department’s budget would remain essentially flat, according to an analysis by House Democrats.

Squeezing more money out of the department is complicated by the fact that the Corbett administration has already eliminated some programs in it. They include a $23.5 million program that gives counties a flexible pot of money to use for a range of pressing social service needs — a cut that some Republican senators have urged Corbett to reverse.

Also, hospitals have complained about cuts that would mean the loss of $333 million in state and federal help for institutions that provide care to the poor and uninsured.

Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa, D-Allegheny, said his caucus will look for ways to spend the department’s money more wisely.

Costa said the state should be able to save at least $100 million by bringing more Medicaid enrollees into managed care programs, plus another $50 million by consolidating state purchases of prescription drugs.

So far, legislators aren’t pushing to cut benefits farther than the Corbett administration’s proposal to limit Medicaid enrollees to six drug prescriptions a month and one annual visit to the dentist.

But it may only be a matter of time before Republicans take this route.

Michael Froelich of Philadelphia-based Community Legal Services, a nonprofit group that advocates for the poor, said savings can be found in any state agency, not just the Department of Public Welfare.

“It’s one of many options,” Froelich said. “It doesn’t have to be the only option.”

Marc Levy covers state government for The Associated Press in Harrisburg. He can be reached at mlevy@ap.org..