Pennsylvania still without budget

Pennsylvania still without budget Legislative leaders and top aides of Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell are meeting today in efforts to work out a deal that could lead to the furlough of more than 24,000 state workers on Monday.
   Talks on a $27 billion-plus state budget did not break off until around midnight Friday, which was taken as a sign that serious negotiations were underway.
   This is the sixth day of the new fiscal year without a budget agreement. Without authority to spend funds that are not critical to health, safety or welfare, temporary layoffs of state workers could begin Monday.
   Senate Republicans would reportedly like to get a budget deal before tackling other issues such as Rendell’s plan for roads and mass transit, but Rendell has indicated he might hold up a budget until those issues are addressed.
   Rendell backed off a plan to lease the Pennsylvania Turnpike to raise those funds, but the Owner Operators Independent Drivers Association reports that an alternate plan that would place tolls on Interstate 80, one of the major east-west roads in Pennsylvania, has gained traction in the Pennsylvania Senate.
   OOIDA reports that a Senate Appropriations Committee has increased the amount of money in a House bill for roads, bridges and mass transit from $700 million to $750 million, and that the money would come from “borrowing against future tolls on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and turning I-80 into a toll road.”