Despite all of the grandstanding about openness and transparency, Pennsylvania legislative leaders still rule the annual budget process with an iron fist, and rank-and-file members are expected to fall into agreement and toe the party line.

This was apparent again this year as the General Assembly’s Republican leadership and Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf attempted to hammer out a budget agreement during Wolf’s last year in office. Governors in Pennsylvania are limited to two four-year terms.

Legislators put a happy face on the outcome as more money was appropriated to key areas such as education, nursing homes and the environment. Thanks to higher than expected revenues and substantial stimulus money from the federal government, Pennsylvania is awash in cash, which allowed legislators to increase spending and put a tidy sum into the rainy day fund as a hedge against a possible recession, especially since the gross domestic product has now contracted two quarters in a row.

Many of these eleventh-hour budget sessions were done behind closed doors, so we taxpayers have no idea about the amount and extent of the horse-trading that went on.

When the dust had settled, rank-and-file legislators from both parties were confronted with hundreds of pages of budgetary items that had to be digested in hours, then voted on.

Not too many legislators will admit to this, but such a feat is nearly impossible to accomplish, so legislators basically say, “Well, I am trusting that my leaders did the research and did the right thing in coming up with this plan, so I am going to cross my fingers, hold my breath and vote for it.”

And that, my friends, is where the trouble begins. We can look back to previous years when similar eleventh-hour negotiations provided documents which later were found to have problematic issues that either needed to be fixed with corrective legislation or legislators had to live with the consequences of their hasty actions.

Such a circumstance has already emerged from the recently passed 2022-23 budget, and it costs us taxpayers a real shot at permanent additional property tax relief. You know, that’s the big issue that so many legislators talk about and publicly back efforts to reduce the burden on property-owners, but now, with a golden opportunity to put their vote where their mouth is, they punted - once again.

While most lawmakers have remained silent so far, others are speaking out because they feel they have been blindsided and left angry and frustrated by this manipulation that they believe was engineered behind their backs.

Among the most outspoken is state Sen. Lisa Boscola, D-Northampton-Lehigh, who promised to introduce legislation to correct the problem. She said legislators should be “a little ashamed of themselves” for going back on their word to us taxpayers. I should say so.

OK, so here is what happened: There is a provision in our statewide casino gambling law that steers hundreds of millions of dollars into property tax relief if certain numbers from table game revenues are achieved. This threshold was reached this past year, so taxpayers could have looked forward to some badly needed real estate tax relief.

But, guess what? In the dead of night, this provision was quietly taken out of the budget process, and instead of going into the fund for taxpayer relief, the money is going into the state’s general budget.

It took the state nearly a dozen years to reach this threshold - $750 million in the fund. The threshold applies only to revenues from table games at the state’s 14 casinos. If budget negotiators would have let nature takes its course, about $130 million would have flowed automatically from 2021-22 into this tax-relief fund, with projections for $134 million for 2022-23 and $131 million for 2023-24, but, no, they stealthily repealed the provision. The move didn’t get any attention until after the budget passed, and the secret negotiations became public.

The governor shares part of the blame, too. He made reference to wanting to make this move in his budget message in February, then signed off on the deal between him and legislative leaders, including lame duck Pat Browne, R-Lehigh, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, a few days after the June 30 budget deadline.

In a statement from Wolf’s office, however, he believes the historic increase in school funding will more than make up for the difference. “The governor agrees that Pennsylvanians need and deserve property tax relief, which is why he’s been steadfast in advocating to adequately fund our schools so every student can get a high-quality education, no matter their ZIP code, and to reduce local community reliance on property taxes. The historic education funding secured by the governor in this budget will help give local communities the ability to lower property taxes,” the statement said.

I’ll believe it when I see it.

The significant tax relief that this infusion of cash would have made would have been of great benefit to the five counties which make up the Times News region.

For example, according to the state’s Independent Fiscal Office, the property owners of Monroe County pay the highest percentage of real estate tax among any of the 67 counties in the commonwealth. Northampton is fifth highest; Lehigh, 10th highest; Carbon, 15th highest, and Schuylkill, 35th highest.

In what we might call a consolation prize, legislative leaders agreed to a one-time $140 million in federal relief funds that will be added to the Property Tax Rent Rebate program. This program is available only to those with income of $35,000 or less, a really small segment of the state’s taxpayers. The rest of us can only dream of what might have been.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com

The foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.