That is exactly what happened.

Even though we were successful in ending the payless paydays for state employees and preventing the more draconian cuts in funding that were contained in Senate Bill 850, we still have to deal with a state budget that essentially flat lines funding for most human services programs and cuts others.

Our Human Services Campaign has been successful in laying a foundation for the future. We have made a lot of progress in maximizing member participation and bringing the power of our union to bear on the budget process.

Chapters have been more active than ever, holding legislative events, breakout actions and media conferences.

We want to continue this member engagement as we prepare for the next budget battle. We really need your help – please step up and do whatever you can. The power of our union to influence the budget process is entirely up to you.

Looking ahead to this year’s legislative session, we will also be fighting a group of legislators who will be targeting municipal pension funds for massive and damaging changes. As we continue our work on the budget, we must also deal with this challenge to our pension benefits.

The combination of bad choices on last year’s budget, coupled with the politics of an election year in 2010, spells disaster for this year’s budget.

Of course, we are also looking ahead to our contract negotiations, so we must lay the ground work for that fight as well.

So what do we need to do?

We need to ramp up our Human Services Campaign to meet the challenges we are facing right now in the budget cycle.

We need to start educating the voters of Pennsylvania, the people we serve every day, about the need to restore some of the drastic cuts in human services funding that are part of the new budget.

We also need to make sure that the citizens of Pennsylvania understand the importance of the work we do.

We have our work cut out for us as we move forward.

SEIU Local 668 will lead the way by continuing our Human Services Campaign because that is the only way we can be sure that our needs, and the needs of the citizens and taxpayers we serve, will be met.