Dem. PA. Senator Responds to Corbett's Budgetlaplooza tour of corporations

[JPZenger]

http://www.altoonamirror.com/page/content.detail/id/558616/Corbett-downplays-education-cuts.html?nav=742

Excerpts:

"Colleges do not work the way private companies do, Sen. Daylin Leach, D-Delaware, said. Most money included in the universities' budgets Corbett referred to is specifically earmarked for purposes including research grants and private donor-endowed projects and is not touchable. "He has to know this," Leach said. "But he greatly understates the impact of cuts."

Universities have to take all of their cuts out of a small section of the budget including resources used to keep tuition costs down for in-state students and programs that are not specifically endowed.

There is low-hanging fruit that wouldn't cost jobs, residential taxes while increasing revenue for the state, Leach said.

Leach said a "real" tax on Marcellus shale industry, eliminating the Delaware Loophole that allows big companies to move profits out of Pennsylvania for a lower corporate income tax, joining all other 49 states in taxing smokeless tobacco and repealing the 1 percent discount for businesses that pay sales taxes can produce revenue."

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http://www.mcall.com/news/local/mc-pa-corbett-education-spending-229-20120229,0,2652371.story

"Corbett's education spending hike covers pensions, not books.

It was meant to quiet Gov. Tom Corbett's critics who claimed his budget proposal would eviscerate public education: an interactive website ... But the ... new website shows the vast majority of Corbett's $338.1 million, or 3.7 percent, increase in education spending would not go toward classroom learning as his administration claims. It would go to cover the state's mandatory increase in its share of public school employees' retirement payments, which originated in the Legislature's 2001 decision to increase pensions for its members and all state employees.

A Morning Call analysis of the website's data shows Corbett's $8.2 billion education budget would increase student-related spending by less than half a percent from the current 2011-12 funding levels. The retirement costs would take up nearly 10 percent of the overall education budget and eat up about 93 percent of Corbett's increased allocations.

Corbett is the first governor in state history to lump mandatory pension payments into what had been separate funding streams for regular education programming. That methodology has increased the bottom line while fueling concern among unions and school board members that it is obscuring the truth.

For example, the website says the Bethlehem Area School District would get a $2.3 million or 5.2 percent bump for a total of $45.2 million in 2012-13. But only 0.4 percent of the $2.3 million increase would go toward classrooms and transportation. The rest covers pensions."

[HopeHoops]

1. Next step: MORE standardized testing!!!

[JPZenger]

2. Pep rallies

My daughter just told me about having to suffer through a PSSA "pep rally."

The high school students in some AP classes have to take time away from their college-level classes to review remedial math, because everyone is required to prepare for the PSSAs.

[HopeHoops]

3. Been there, done that. No t-shirt.