Really Great Analysis of Corbett's Pennsylvania Budget, and What It Really Means to People

[JPZenger]

http://pennbpc.org/sites/pennbpc.org/files/Budget-Summit-2012-PBPC.pdf

The link is to a really informative set of slides about Corbett's proposed budget and trends, from a budget summit held this week by the PA. Budget and Policy Center.

Some highlights, with my own commentary:

- PA. ranks 42nd among the 50 states in the percentage of public school costs that is funded by the state.

- If Corbett's budget is approved, PA. will be spending twice as much on prisons as on higher education.

- Most sources of tax revenue to PA. have recovered - except real estate transfer taxes (because of the weak housing and construction market) and corporate taxes. This reduction in corporate taxes occurred because:

1. one corporate tax rate has been reduced each year (including the next proposed year, costing ANOTHER $250 MILLION),
2. corporate loopholes have not been closed including the loophole that lets PA companies funnel profits through Delaware, and
3. Corbett changed business depreciation rules in 2011 that cost PA. $200 million. Therefore, the reduction in state revenues has really been a "Corbett-inflicted wound."

- If Corbett's budget is approved, funding of public universities will have been cut by one-third in 4 years. I wonder why tuition increases?

- Corbett's budget cut funding to 29 school districts by an average of over $700 per student. Those school districts had an average of 59% of their students living in poverty. Meanwhile, of the school districts that had cuts of less than $150 per student, they had an average of only 12% of students living in poverty.

[creeksneakers2]

1. Shocking

Corbett's priorities are terrible.

[Curmudgeoness]

2. All funding cuts, no mandate cuts....

our county commissioners are telling us to brace for a tax increase, since the state has cut so much funding of programs that the state has mandated.

So Corbett is all excited about lowering taxes and cutting spending, but he has not bothered to hit the other side of the Republican argument----big government. This means that no one in the state of PA will have any tax relief (unless they are drillers) since any cuts made at the state level will be offset by increases at the county and local levels. This is why I am always leery of all the hype about governors who have cut spending.....at the state level, maybe.

I am not advocating getting rid of most of the mandates, but I call "foul" on the principles that this governor is operating under.

One of the cuts discussed was another cut this year of 20% from the Human Services Development Fund, which funds services like mental health, developmental services, drug and alcohol services, and children and youth services. In 2007, this fund provided $379,341, and in 2012, it will provide $144,963, which is nearly 62% decrease in five years. But these services are still necessary for society as well as being mandated.

Thanks Gov. Corbett. We all knew that the Republican party was going to have our back on tax relief.

[HopeHoops]

3. The analysis is simple: It sucks.

[JPZenger]

4. some good sarcasm

http://pubrecord.org/commentary/9055/corbett-pennsylvanias-savior/

[PA Democrat]

5. Thanks for posting. If I don't laugh about it, I'll cry.

I loved the description of Corbett as the "mascot" of the natural gas drillers. The guy should be forced to dress as a drilling rig every time he goes out in public. Or perhaps get the names of his corporate masters tattoed across his forehead.

[JPZenger]

6. Daily News Columnist on the State of State Government

http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/john_baer/20120227_John_Baer_.html?viewAll=y

Excerpts:

"At the top of the pile is Gov. "Cut-Cut" Corbett who once blasted predecessor Gov. Ed for spending $45 million on Capitol complex stuff and pushing $1.9 million for an Arlen Specter Library.

Now Corbett's seeking $55 million for Capitol complex stuff and releasing $1.9 million for an Arlen Specter Library. Corbett's defense? His Capitol money is "a different story" than Ed's. And the Specter library money is OK now because, "I felt I had to keep his [Ed's] promise."

Why Corbett worries about Ed's promise is beyond me. He should worry about his own: "My very first week as governor, I'm gonna send a reform plan to Harrisburg legislators and, believe me, some of them aren't going to like it." Enjoying all that reform?

...Finally, in Pittsburgh today, former Republican Senate Whip Jane Orie goes on trial for a second time. She and her sister, Janine, are charged with using public resources for years to benefit political campaigns of the senator and another sister, state Supreme Court Justice Joan Orie Melvin. And, of course, Justice Melvin still sits on the court faced with resolving the redistricting debacle - old maps or new maps, primary or no primary, special elections or no special elections - which is further evidence of Harrisburg leadership's ongoing psychosis."

[JPZenger]

7. Summary of what happened today at PA. Senate budget hearing on education

http://educationvoterspa.blogspot.com/2012/02/yesterday-feb.html

[JPZenger]

8. Devastating Education Cuts Leave Trail of Consequences Across Pennsylvania

http://neatoday.org/2012/03/01/devastating-education-cuts-leaving-trail-of-consequences-across-pennsylvania/

“In my building alone, we furloughed approximately 30 teachers last year,” said Kristen Cole, a teacher from the Pocono Mountain School District, where nearly half the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.

Corbett’s cuts are also yielding distressing consequences for kids in the McKeesport Area School District, where programs designed to keep students from dropping out have met the ax, thanks to $2.9 million in state funding cuts. The poverty rate in McKeesport is more than twice the state average. “Our tutoring program is basically non-existent at this point,” added district educator Linda Cosgrove.

The situation is no better in the York City School District, which lost $8.4 million in funding and furloughed 123 educators this year. Programs like elementary art, music and physical education were eliminated. The cuts have left educators with more challenges than ever, as they scramble to meet the needs of the district’s predominantly lower-income students.

“Public schools can not function on skeleton staff,” said furloughed educator Laura Baum. “And this is even less than skeleton staff.”

[JPZenger]

9. Policy experts describe harm from state budget cuts to education

http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/bethlehem/index.ssf/2012/03/post_213.html

Easton Express-times

Excerpts:

"Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett's proposed budget and the current year's spending plan represent a huge step backward in state education funding, according to state policy experts. And the backlash will hit the wallets of citizens across the state when local school districts in turn hike real estate taxes, said Ron Cowell, president of The Education Policy and Leadership Center, a nonpartisan Harrisburg based nonprofit.

Cowell, along with Sharon Ward, executive director of the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center, on Thursday spoke about the impact of the proposed 2012-13 state budget on Pennsylvania children and families during Moravian College's Family Policy Summit.

Pennsylvania's reliance on local property taxes to fund schools results in major inequities across the state, Ward said. Per pupil spending in the state in 2008-09, the most recent year of data available, ranges from $8,759 per student spent in the Valley View School District to $22,484 per pupil in the Lower Merion School District in suburban Philadelphia, Cowell said.

While Corbett boasts his proposed budget increases funding to public schools by $21.8 million to $6.51 billion, Cowell said all of that money is going to increased Social Security costs. Corbett has abandoned the education funding formula, which looked at student needs and poverty, created and used under Gov. Ed Rendell...For two years, the Legislature and Rendell used stimulus dollars to increase basic education funding and the state share also increased, Cowell said. But Corbett did the same thing when he used $387 million in federal money targeted to save teaching jobs, Cowell said."