After a series of credit downgrades for the state government and chaos for public school districts and social service agencies, Pennsylvania’s government still is without an actual budget as the state staggers into a legislative election year.

The Republican majorities in both houses signed off on a $30-billion-plus, unbalanced budget that maintains a yawning deficit while failing to slow the exponential increase in public pension costs or modernize an antiquated tax structure. Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf authorized enough spending to partially fund schools and social services, but used his line-item veto authority to eliminate about $7 billion in other spending. The state still does not have a budget.

Some of the cost of the legislative malpractice that has resulted in a six-month-plus impasse is well-established. But Pennsylvanians deserve a full accounting before they go to the polls later this year to render judgment on this woeful legislative performance.

The state, for example, will not fund the cost of borrowing for more than 200 school districts that had to borrow more than $1 billion to cover the absence of state subsidies. But there are many more ways that the absence of a state budget has cost Pennsylvanians.

Credit downgrades for school districts and the state government itself will increase the cost of borrowing for years. The failure to address pension costs now keeps that meter running in the wrong direction. The failure to reform property taxes keeps local school districts chained to tax bases that cannot sustain them.

There are other costs. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette recently reported that Pittsburgh lost a movie production because the film tax credit was unavailable due to the budget impasse. And there are many such spin-off losses for an array of local governments and businesses across many aspects of the unfunded budget.

Academicians who study state government, good-government advocates or other analysts should establish a clearinghouse to collect all of the direct and ancillary costs of the ongoing legislative malpractice and arm voters with the information.