For the second year in a row, Gov. Tom Corbett beat a midnight deadline and signed a state budget that includes no new taxes.
"Hopefully we're developing a habit, and I think the Pennsylvania citizens will appreciate that habit of on time," Corbett said after the signing ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda.
The final $27.66 billion budget package includes several significant victories for the Corbett administration, including a tax incentive aimed at luring a Shell Oil Co. plant to Beaver County, a measure to alter how teachers are evaluated, and a proposal to tame rising prison costs through targeted sentencing, the Post-Gazette reported.
The spending plan, approved by the on Thursday and the late Friday, maintains funding at current year levels for public universities and most school districts, but some fiscally struggling districts received a little extra money, the Patriot-News reported. It cuts funding for human services by $84 million and eliminates the Department of Public Welfare's cash assistance program, starting Aug. 1.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Jake Corman, R-Bellefonte, said the budget is based on Senate Republicans' belief that controlling government spending and rejecting tax hikes is crucial to moving Pennsylvania toward economic recovery.
"In these fiscally challenging times you have to make tough choices, but we also recognize that providing a quality education to kids of all ages is one of our most important responsibilities," Corman said. "This budget includes funding to help counties and local agencies provide essential social and health services and programs for senior citizens and those with physical and mental disabilities."
While acknowledging what he calls "hurtful cuts to vulnerable Pennsylvanians," the state’s new budget contains important provisions intended to address the root of the state’s fiscal woes, said , D-Canonsburg.
“The bottom line is jobs and we have taken aggressive steps to improve the economy and employment picture,” Solobay said. “Economic growth and the jobs that come with it should make future budgets easier on everyone.”
The budget includes an aggressive plan to create a historic economic development project in Beaver County and tax incentives for a wide array of employers to create jobs.
Along with the tax credits required to close the deal for the construction of the $3 billion ethane “cracker” plant, the budget contains an expansion of the film tax credit to include its use in sound studios, and a more than doubling in the credit for hiring unemployed workers.
Lawmakers also adopted a “single-sales factor” for apportioning corporate net income taxes, finishing the shift from payroll and assets to sales when calculating business taxes. The change encourages employers to keep their manufacturing as well as their retail facilities in the state.
Other changes to the tax code allow the transfer of family farms to extended family without applying the inheritance tax, and provide credits to businesses that open up in renovated and preserved historic buildings.
What do you think of the budget? Tell us in the comments section and take our poll.
The land that is owned by Allegheny County at the airport would support enough wells that would give the county annual revenue close to $800MIL a year yet NO ACTION! Our governments need to asses our “Assets” and use them to the best of their ability to run the show. We need to get our “heads out of our A**”!
Explain to us again, ... a discussion that was populating these boards over a year ago, ... what is the relationship between drilling for natural gas and public education. Thank you.
Robert I thought we weren't allowed to swear on these comment as Frustrated FRED! is doing on his last line.
I have serious problems with cyber and charter schools getting public money which comes from YOUR taxes...They are 1) For Profit schools 2) education comes second...There is NO long term evidence they have better outcomes than public. If anything, I would guess lower expectations- especially when they cater to some kids who just don't want to go to school because they want to sleep until 11am everyday. Read the link above and see that the CEO of K12 got paid $5M last year. That is with PUBLIC money. Wake up people...if you think public schools are costing you dearly, at least there is TRANSPARENCY by law. You have NO WAY of ever seeing what goes on behind closed doors with cyber and charter (corporations) I mean "schools". Wake up people....he just wants to dismantle unions...that is what this is really about- because they oppose his agendas. His decisions have little to do with actual "education" quality. He, himself, is a graduate of Shaler- a public school- and he went on to Law School. He is just trying to bust unions...
The second consecutive on-time state budget serves to deliver another embarrassing blow to Mr. Corbett's predecessor, Ed Rendell, who flouted the State Constitution, delivering late budgets every year within his long, painful, and costly eight-year reign. We should recall that in many of the years in which there was a Rendell budget impasse, state employees were used as pawns, threatened with the prospect of "payless paydays" if the budget was not approved by July 1. No such issue has arisen under Governor Corbett. Delivering a budget on time is one mark of a leader. Say what you will about him and his policies, some of which I disagree with, but a responsible and mature individual now occupies the Governor's Mansion in Harrisburg: hallelujah!
Dan Onorato??? Really! What did Dan Onorato do for Allegheny County????
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hbstQ1ERCbU Selective drilling moratorium -- A bad deal for Pennsylvanians A state budget-related bill, Senate Bill 1263, was passed today that includes a moratorium on natural gas drilling in Bucks and Montgomery counties in the eastern portion of the state. Although the moratorium language has nothing to do with the budget, it was inserted at the last minute without a chance for public vetting or real debate. Aside from being blatantly unconstitutional, since all laws in Pennsylvania must be uniform and not beneficial to one particular county or group, this is simply horrible public policy on multiple levels. The legislature should not be picking and choosing which counties can or cannot drill for natural gas, especially after Act 13 – the drilling law – was passed under the guise of creating uniformity for the purposes of natural gas drilling in our Commonwealth. No matter if you consider yourself "pro-drilling" or "anti-drilling" or somewhere in between, this is a bad deal for Pennsylvania citizens, and one that could usher a disastrous county-by-county political football game all across the state.
Simply put, welfare is a transfer of taxpayer funds to those the government deems eligible. A tax credit is a sum deducted from the total taxes an entity would owe to the taxing authority. Again, Pennsylvania is not cutting a $1.7 billion check to Shell to open the “cracker” plant in Beaver County. A plant that will cost Shell $3 billion to construct and will employ thousands. Shell can deduct $1.7 billion in taxes it would owe to Pennsylvania spread over 25 years. In regards to education, the budget does not cut funding to schools and universities. It maintains current funding levels.
All the talk of "cuts" continues to miss this point. The Fed stimulus money was a one-time shot, and quickly many folks believed the stream of money would just keep coming. When it did not, then the idea of "cut" was used to characterize the funding reduction.
The problem, the 'extra' money was taken to be an ongoing stream. When the stream stopped, then the outrage of "cuts" was heard through the districts. No cuts, rather just back to pre-stimulus levels.
:The spending plan, approved by the House on Thursday and the Senate late Friday, maintains funding at current year levels for public universities and most school districts, but some fiscally struggling districts received a little extra money, the Patriot-News reported. It cuts funding for human services by $84 million and eliminates the Department of Public Welfare's cash assistance program, starting Aug. 1"