HARRISBURG -- Two House Appropriations subcommittees will hold public hearings in the Pittsburgh area next week to gather information about mass transit funding and rising medical costs, including medical assistance for low-income people and nursing home and hospital costs.

The panel's Economic Impact and Infrastructure Subcommittee will hold a three-hour hearing in Green Tree on Monday to hear from experts on mass transit and take public testimony on the issue. The hearing will start at 1 p.m. at the Green Tree Borough Building, 10 W. Manilla Ave.

The first two hours will consists of business leaders and transportation experts talking about transit, with the public speaking in the final hour. Citizens don't have to sign up ahead of time to speak.

In the first hour, local business leaders will discuss "the importance of transit to the economy,'' said Rep. Dwight Evans, D-Philadelphia, chairman of appropriations.

Business leaders, including members of the Allegheny Conference, the Greater Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce and officials of private companies, "will give testimony on the need for employees to get to work and for consumers to get to businesses,'' said Mr. Evans, who is one of the legislative leaders involved in crafting a new state budget for 2006-07, which is supposed to be done by July 1.

Meeting that deadline, he said yesterday, will be a major challenge, in light of the need to come up with an additional $965 million a year for fixing roads and bridges, plus $760 million a year for mass transit, plus additional millions for Gov. Ed Rendell's Prescription for Pennsylvania, a plan to extend health coverage to 800,000 uncovered Pennsylvanians.

On Tuesday, the Health and Human Services Subcommittee will hold a hearing in Uniontown, at 1 p.m. in Swimmers Hall on the Penn State Eberly campus. It will focus on the medical assistance proposals made by Mr. Rendell and how much they will cost, along with issues of hospital costs, managed care and nursing homes. There will be three 45-minute panel discussions followed by a 45-minute public comment session.

The first panel discussion will concern managed care, and speakers will come from the Gateway health plan, UPMC health plan and Keystone Mercy health plan. Then a panel will discuss hospital issues. It will include Carolyn Scanlan, president of the Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania, and Eileen Simmons, chief financial officer of Magee-Womens Hospital in Pittsburgh.

The third panel, dealing with nursing homes, includes Maggie Harper, administrator of Westmoreland Manor in Greensburg. Then the public will have its turn to speak.

The Appropriations Committee will take all the comments made during these sessions, along with several others to be held next week in other areas of the state, into consideration as it deliberates the new 2006-07 state budget, Mr. Evans said.