As Pennsylvania’s budget impasse meanders into its fourth month, its effects are rippling outward.

Communities are feeling the strain of the gridlock in the state capital as it creeps quietly into social services.

And the financial squeeze the budget battle brings is hitting close to home in Carbon County, where commissioners are scrambling to come up with cash to ensure the eligible elderly population doesn’t go hungry.

Normally, county officials wouldn’t be concerned with the issue. They already would’ve set aside some money in their budget that would augment the approximate 80% funding that would come from the state.

But the discord over dough down in Dauphin County forced the local governing body to change the funding recipe in hopes of keeping thousands of meals on tables at area senior citizens centers and thousands of others delivered to homes of seniors who otherwise could go hungry.

The local aging services organization is facing mounting pressure to do more with less.

A compromise county officials crafted guarantees that senior citizens centers will remain open and home-delivered meals will be distributed through the end of the year.

Susan Ziegler, who heads the county’s Agency on Aging, said the compromise, while continuing the senior services, will hurt the meal providers and landlords.

That’s because effective Nov. 1, the county will withhold all payments until the cash starts flowing from Harrisburg again.

Ziegler recently estimated the action will cost the county between $75,000 and $80,000 a month.

It’s bad enough the county is forced to shuffle the money, but as the cash moves through accounts it’s not earning valuable interest, thus costing taxpayers even more.

Already, the commissioners have approved loans for its Children and Youth Services Department, doing their best to keep the services up and running

Commissioner Mike Sofranko estimated the county is spending about $1 million per month to keep up with payroll and related obligations. He warned earlier this year that without cash from the state, the county could be broke by November.

And that would be more than a financial failure. It’s a moral failure.

Counties aren’t the bad guys here. They’re the ones stuck with coming up with the cash to comply with unfunded mandates from the state.

When state funding dries up, counties — and the seniors they serve — suffer.

The elderly beneficiaries of these county services are the folks who spent decades serving communities. They taught in our schools, built our roads, staffed our hospitals and raised our families.

In their senior years, they deserve better than political theater.

They deserve a state government that’s able to function.

For many of them, during their working years, those who now use the services were forced to deal with the dysfunctional chambers under the Capitol dome.

Commissioner Wayne Nothstein, who might be considered the most senior of the county officials, recalled that in 2009, a state impasse cost the county a ton of cash. He said similar situations in 2015 and 2016 led to a nine-month stalemate before state lawmakers approved a budget.

Though the county is doing what it can, further cuts could come.

Waiting for a solution isn’t a viable option for a senior who needs to get to a doctor’s appointment tomorrow, or a widow who’s waiting for her rent rebate to stay in her home.

These questions aren’t about some abstract policies. They’re real, urgent and human ones.

Our leaders in Harrisburg need to remember that voters placed them in a position of public trust. These budget squabbles keep eroding that trust.

They need to be reminded that every line item in the budget is a person whose well-being depends on their leadership.

Our state lawmakers need to end the impasse and show seniors across the state and especially in Carbon County that they matter.

They can’t continue to leave grandma holding an empty dinner plate while they argue over who’s paying for the potatoes.

They can’t leave Carbon stuck with doing the dishes when the county’s own money dries up.

The longer the impasse continues, the more it becomes a betrayal of those who’ve given so much.

And as those lawmakers enter their own Golden Years, it’s not a legacy any of them should want to leave behind.

ED SOCHA | tneditor@tnonline.com