Pennsylvania’s $100 Million for the Barnes: Authorized, not Appropriated

While I deplore the planned move of the Barnes Foundation as much as Christopher Knight does, I find a bit misleading his LA Times report yesterday that in fiscal 2002, long before the Barnes’ relocation to Philadelphia received court approval, the Pennsylvania legislature had “set aside” some $100 million for the design and construction of a new Barnes facility.
CultureGrrl had gotten word about this issue at the end of last month, but deemed it a tempest in a teapot: That’s because this was merely an authorization, not, as Knight terms it, an “appropriation.” Authorizations are not money in the bank, as is made clear in the section on the Capital Budget in the state’s explanation of “The Budget Process in Pennsylvania”:
Passage of a Capital Budget Itemization Act does not mean that all projects authorized in the act will be implemented….Upon passage of a Capital Budget Itemization Act, Commonwealth agencies are responsible for reevaluating the need for requested capital projects, taking into consideration program changes or other changing conditions. As a result of this review, some projects may be canceled and others deferred.
What the budget item does show is that political powers in the state have long favored the move. But we (and Judge Stanley Ott, who later ruled in favor of the move) already knew that…whether or not we knew about the legislature’s premature action.