Carbon County Commissioners are disgusted with Gov. Tom Wolf and the Legislature over the ongoing budget impasse.

The board, on Thursday, passed a resolution urging the state to end the impasse and also spoke about Wolf's warning to counties regarding the lack of a budget and the most recent version of the 2015-2016 spending plan that was passed in the Senate and House and sent to Wolf's desk for approval. Wolf has again threatened to veto the spending bill because he feels it is "irresponsible and unbalanced.""The problem I see is there was no increase in any revenues in this cycle," Commissioners' Chairman Wayne Nothstein said, adding that counties are being forced to take out loans to continue human services."We are fortunate here in Carbon," Commissioner Thomas J. Gerhard said. "We didn't have to borrow, but a lot of counties did. Bucks County is going to have to pay $120,000 in interest, so their departments will take a hit."I personally feel the state should be responsible for paying the interest on county loans that were taken out with the impasse, but the state says no. That disturbs me," he added. "You're already talking about the 2016-17 budget. How can you go on to the next budget when you didn't even complete this one?"Getting worseNothstein said that things are going to get worse in education if this stalemate continues much longer because schools may begin closing.The commissioners said two main areas of state funding are big issues - education and human services.Mandates and funding cuts have left gaps that either counties or school districts are forced to fill."It will cost counties if something isn't done and they don't supply funding from the state," Nothstein said. "If this budget doesn't pass, guess who will be sitting in the hot seat in November when we are doing our budget. I think that decision (to either raise taxes or cut county services) is harder for us to make on the local level because it is us who will get blamed for the lack of funding from the state and federal government.""This budget fiasco comes down to funding and affordability," Commissioner William O'Gurek said. "I'm tired of the posturing on both sides about it. If we're going to meet our responsibility to the people of this state, it's going to cost money, and on one hand one party doesn't want to tax the drillers and get money that could be an answer, and on the other hand they don't want to raise taxes."O'Gurek said that when Wolf was elected, 60 percent of the voters agreed with his campaign that education and human services were main issues that needed additional funds because they were coming up short.Tax reform"We got to meet the responsibility to people, and everyone is crying for school tax relief and by not funding education properly it continues to put hardship on schools. I think it is time for them to come up with revenue sources, whether it is a sales tax, an income tax or something. I am sick and tired of hearing about property tax reform because they talk about it in election years and at the end of the day it goes away. I'm tired of Dave Argall talking about property tax reform and never getting it done. They have got to fund the things that the people need in this state, and that is education and human services."County Controller Robert Crampsie also weighed in on the matter, saying that he doesn't even understand why the state has a deadline for the budget since it is ignore it anyway."Why is June 30 the deadline when they keep operating just like normal?" he said. "I'm old-school. June 30, you know what that means to me? You shut down. Everything is done and turned in or you can't operate and we wouldn't be sitting here on St. Patty's Day talking about it."Nothstein and Gerhard agreed."These people get paid for sitting out there," Nothstein said. "The budget crisis drags on because people are still getting paid. The pay has to stop until a budget gets passed.""That is a sore spot of a lot of our legislators, but guess what, if you hit them in the wallet, they will pass a budget and do their job," Gerhard added. "But if there is no incentive for any of these people, they will just sit on their butts, playing pingpong, whacking the ball (the budget proposals) back and forth. That's all they're doing."Nothstein told his colleagues that he was able to hand-deliver a letter from the Carbon County 4-H Livestock Club directly to Wolf on Monday morning before the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania conference.He said that Wolf said he was pretty sure he knew what would be in the letter.