So, state workers have been without pay for 16 days now.
You will be surprised at how many Pennsylvania's don't know that. Uh... Hello! You are living in the state! You should know whats going on.
I would love for the state to raise sales tax for the budget so all these people can b***h that they didn't know about the tax increase...

The state has given state workers letter that they can hand out to companies they owe money to in hopes that the company will be generous and understanding and cut them some slack.

Anyway, there are some companies out there who are being really nice to state works. One of my mom's co-workers got a call from one of her insurance companies telling her that they totally understand that she isn't making money and she can't pay and they will be happy to keep her covered and to just pay whenever she can afford to.
The woman called PP&L (Pennsylvania Power & Light) explaining that she can't afford to pay her bill because she was a state worker and she wasn't getting paid. They told her she had to pay.
It's nice that a state company is being so nice...

And then my mom's other co-worker... The woman gave birth to a baby that was about 1 pound. The baby was in the hospital for months and he was finally able to come home. He's 5 pounds now, but he's still on oxygen. She's a single mom.
She gets a phone call from her medical insurance (given to her for being a state employee) and they tell her she owes them $25. The girl told them she didn't have the money. And they told her she had to pay up. So she got pissed and told them that she knows they work for the state and she does to. She asked if they were aware that state workers weren't getting paid and the woman said yes. So the girl asked, "How do you expect me to pay you if I'm not getting paid and I don't have any money?" So yeah, they didn't make her pay.

But yeah, the state is asking companies to let state employee's bills go for now with the promise they will get their money when everything gets straightened out. It's very disheartening to see that some companies are so cruel in times of need.

The state claims they are working on getting the budget resolved, but they kind of stopped mentioning what was going on in the news. Today there was a little scrolling thing on the bottom of the 12 o'clock news saying there would be a meeting about the budget.
So it's hard to say if they are acutally working hard on the budget or not. I know they didn't even talk about the budget at all last week.
I don't see how this is going to get resolved quickly if they don't do anything for a week.

Mom is going to be giving our landlord the letter she got from the state. It's almost that time of the year when they decide to raise our rent a lot claiming we use a ton of oil. So hopefully they don't raise the rent until this is resolved at least...