PA budget deal out, but few details on final changes
by Erika Owens on Sep 18 2009 Posted in Latest news
A deal has been reached on the budget.
Gov. Rendell said that he would only sign a budget that did not have any further cuts in education, health care, and economic development and that has enough revenue to balance this year's and next year's budgets. Gov. Rendell said those conditions were met and a budget was decided in "a fair and responsible way." The Republican Senate Appropriations Committee chair, Jake Corman, stressed the budget's strong investments in education.
Unfortunately, the additional funding for Philadelphia from the state for education is still expected to fall as much as $150 million short of what the District had anticipated and budgeted.
According to the Inquirer, Gov. Rendell said the deal would make PA "'one of the few states in ... this horrible recession that is actually increasing funding for education' - by $300 million."
The plan includes increases in business and cigarette sales taxes as well as drawing $1.5 billion from state reserves to meet the $28 billion cost. The plan "also would raise money from legalizing table games at the state's slot-machine casinos, extending the state sales tax to concert and theater tickets and leasing more state forest land for natural gas exploration."
The deal involves a 1% decrease in spending, but details on where those cuts would be made are not yet available.
According to the AP report, "Assuming the agreement holds, that work may take about two weeks before it can be signed by Rendell."
Keep checking the Notebook site for updates on the budget.
Comments (3)
Submitted by Erika Owens on Fri, 09/18/2009 - 22:32.
Definitely still a lot of unanswered questions. Where is that $300 million increase coming from--how do stimulus funds fit in? Is this likely to pass the legislature as is? If not, what will the sticking points be? I know Rendell's been talking about gaming tables for a while, but will that be a sticking point for anyone? Look forward to learning all the details and consequences of this deal.
Submitted by what about the formula? (not verified) on Mon, 09/21/2009 - 18:17.
I have been trying to follow the budget debate as it relates to education spending...but there are a lot of questions...
Is the school funding money being distributed using the new school funding formula (based on the costing-out study) that was put in place last year ?
Is the plan to have each PA school district reach their target amount of funding in the next few years?
I haven't seen any quotes from Rendell or other legislators talking about how this year's budget affects the long-term plan for fixing our state's school funding system. Hopefully someone from the Notebook staff can shed some light on this. Thank you.
Submitted by Erika Owens on Mon, 09/21/2009 - 18:24.
We will have an article about the budget situation in our upcoming Fall edition. I'll post that article soon and will post a link to it in a reply to your comment as well.
As far as I know, the details remain a little sketchy though, especially in regard to overall long-term plans that you mention. We'll keep you updated.
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