This year’s state budget, overdue since July 1, is the fourth consecutive late spending plan. Some legislators want to break this pattern, but their fixes, in the form of bills that would incentivize lawmakers to meet their deadlines, languish in the hopper.

In Harrisburg, there appears to be little appetite for change. Indeed, that could be the motto of the Pennsylvania Legislature. It perfectly summarizes the resistance to reform that leads to so much futility in Harrisburg.

In the face of this futility: some school districts confront the prospect of taking out loans and having to pass on to taxpayers the costs of the interest on those loans; commuters, including students, are inconvenienced by public transit service reductions; and counties having to cover the costs of social service agencies as they await state funding.

Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro asserted Monday that GOP leaders are intentionally stalling budget negotiations to score political points ahead of his expected bid for reelection next year.

“I’m a big boy. I understand the game,” Shapiro said. “I understand that they need to play politics, but I think trying to slow down the state budget for the purposes of seemingly gaining some political advantage — that they will not gain — that’ll only serve to hurt the good people of Pennsylvania — I think it’s sad.”

We’re not sure whether this is true, but that it’s plausible is sad enough.

Also, note to all involved: This isn’t a game.

As we’ve pointed out before, passing a budget on time is the state Legislature’s most fundamental task. And yet it fails to do so year after year, leading us to ask this question, year after year: Is our supposedly full-time Legislature, the largest in the nation, worth the money it costs us?

Even rank-and-file lawmakers make about $110,000 a year, and many also collect per diems — flat-rate payments covering meals and lodging for every session day lawmakers travel more than 50 miles from their homes for legislative business (unbelievably, receipts are not required for per diems). Lawmakers also get automatic cost-of-living raises each year, so they continue to be rewarded for their ineffectiveness.

As we’ve also noted before, so many lawmakers campaign on having private-sector experience and then, once they get to Harrisburg, blithely abandon the practices that are common in the business world — like submitting receipts when seeking to be compensated for work-related expenses.

And like passing a budget on time.

In the private sector, there are penalties for failing to do one’s job.

So we appreciate a bipartisan effort to introduce a consequence — lawmakers, feel free to look up that word in the dictionary — into Harrisburg’s budget-making process.

State Reps. Jill Cooper, R-Westmoreland, and Jim Haddock, D-Luzerne, introduced a bill in June to freeze paychecks for lawmakers, the governor and the lieutenant governor until a state budget has been adopted.

“If elected state officials felt the pain first, financially, it may give more incentive for them to put pressure on their leadership,” Haddock said.

We agree that it’s at least worth a try. But unsurprisingly, the bill remains stuck in the Democratic-controlled House Appropriations Committee.

What Haddock and Cooper are proposing was once common practice. But in 2009, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that state government employees, including lawmakers, must continue to receive their salaries.

Some lawmakers choose to decline their salaries during a budget impasse — 10 House members this year, according to the House chief clerk’s office. The Senate chief clerk’s office did not provide a list.

We extend kudos to those 10 House members, with this caveat: Some lawmakers would feel the pain of a missing salary less acutely than others, because many of them have lucrative side hustles. As The Philadelphia Inquirer reported last year, “More than half of the General Assembly reports an outside business interest or alternative forms of income, according to an analysis of all 251 state lawmakers’ statements of financial interest by The Inquirer. They moonlight as attorneys, company executives, property managers, farmers  and other roles when they’re not in session.”

Of course, it’s relatively easy to balance being a lawmaker with another profession when the days you’re required to be in session are in the 40 to 80 range.

The state Senate isn’t scheduled to be in session until Sept. 8. The state House? Sept. 22.

This is a “full-time” Legislature, remember.

Only three other states were operating without a finalized budget as of mid-August: Michigan, Oregon and North Carolina.

North Carolina, at least, has a law that continues funding at the previous year’s rate until a new budget is signed into law. (Side note: The North Carolina General Assembly is technically a part-time body, though its sessions have expanded in recent years. Its members are paid a fraction of what Pennsylvania lawmakers are paid. Different legislative model, same result: a budget stalemate.)

Pennsylvania state Rep. Marla Brown, R-Lawrence, wants to ensure payments continue during a budget impasse, specifically for certain essential services dealing with domestic violence, mental and behavioral health, intellectual disabilities, substance abuse treatment, and counties’ children and youth programs.

“I think the people that are at the negotiating table need to listen to the field more, get closer to the concerns of those that they represent,” Brown said. “Because there’s a lot of people being hurt by prolonging this.”

But even Brown’s very sensible, bipartisan proposal has failed to gain any traction, languishing in the state House Appropriations Committee since June 16.

She said legislative leaders likely resist changing budget rules so lawmakers feel the pressure of a deadline.

But what pressure are they really feeling now? With the state budget now nearly 60 days late, we see no evidence of any necessary pressure, especially as most lawmakers aren’t even in Harrisburg.

Brown said she thinks “it’s an embarrassment that we let it come to this.”

We could not agree more.

— LNP, Lancaster via TNS