It's been 70 days since Pennsylvania's budget should have been passed and there has been little movement from lawmakers in Harrisburg.

This has led organizations to start to lose their patience. Kim Thomas, the Executive Director of Infinite Erie "We are more than two months now into this state budget impasse and certainly at this point in time you have local school districts, you've got pre-k providers, childcare providers, economic development that are ongoing and in planning and really rely on public resources especially state public resources. They are all starting to feel tremendous pressure of the impasse at this point."


A lack of budget has led companies to change the way they conduct day-to-day businesses

Dr. Paul Lukach, the Executive Director of the Crime Victim Center said, "We do have open positions that we are not filling because we don't have the dollars coming in. But it is really stressful thinking, 'is this the day they are going to pass the budget?' and then 'when are they going to sign all the resolutions ?' So we can actually get the money out because that's the other half of it. It's not just passing the budget, 'yay, everything starts', you have to sign all the corresponding documents to make all the money flow."


One of the biggest concerns that the Crime Victim Center has deals with its programming. Some they want to continue, others they want to start up, but they can't do either without the proper funds.
As Dr. Lukach explained, "We have exciting new programs that we want to roll out. We can't do that because the money is frozen. We are cutting back on benefits for our staff because we don't have the money we would normally do to support our staff. It's really problematic when those things happen."


As people around the state wait for the budget to pass, Dr. Lukach has a message to lawmakers in Harrisburg. 
"Pass the budget. Understand that hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvania lives depend on so many human services, and drug, and alcohol, mental health all of those things are negatively effected by this and if you can't take care of the people you are charged to serve, then why are you in office?"