I wish I could announce some final state budget deal, and reveal here how legal services is being treated in that deal.  But all of us watching the news know that the Governor's Sunday deadline to finalize the budget then got pushed to a Tuesday deadline, and now it appears there are not enough votes in the House to pass the budget and revenue bills anyway (keep in mind, the General Assembly will have to pass a number of bills, which address how the money is being spend and where the revenues will come from).

For an article on the current state of the budget, see the Harrisburg Patriot News article, in which the Governor says the budget deal is not unraveling, but he recognizes it is bumping up against problems.  Some say it is unraveling. 

Despite all the uncertainty, let me confirm two hopeful items.  I have discussed these topics in prior postings so I won't go into detail now. But on the budget side, we remain optimistic that funding in the budget for legal services will hold us steady at last year's funding level.  In the current climate, this is pretty good news.  And on the filing fee bill, HB 1861, which already passed the House, we are also optimistic that the Senate will agree to provide some temporary filing fee revenues to help make up for the major shortfalls in IOLTA revenues.  However, it appears likely the Senate may decide to adopt its own Bill, rather than just acting on the House Bill, when it takes action.  We are not yet sure of the dollar amounts included in the Senate version.  We would not expect to see any action by the Senate on the fee bill until the impasse over the budget has been overcome.

Stay tuned.