It's not everyday that you can get 52 local officials, from both parties, to agree about anything. But that's exactly what has happened. Governor Corbett's draconian budget is what has done it. At a time when he is proposing reductions in education and human services, he also wants to reduce business taxes. A bipartisan group of 52 local officials have petitioned Corbett to restore funding. Northampton County Executive John Stoffa, highest ranking local official to join in this Epistle to the Harrisburgers, complains that "[w]e cannot jeopardize opportunities for the next generation of Pennsylvania citizens. We must continue to fund schools and social services for the people of the Commonwealth."
Allegheny Controller Chelsa Wagner adds a complaint I've heard from Northampton County's John Cusick and Lehigh County's Percy Dougherty. "A tax cut in Harrisburg is a tax shift to local communities. Harrisburg has been doing it for years, and it has to stop."
Locally, the letter is signed by the following local officials: Allentown - Julio Guridy and Joe Davis; Bethlehem - Bob Donchez and Eric Evans; Easton - Sandra Vulcano; Easton School District - Pat Volcano; and Northampton County - Executive John Stoffa.
28 comments:
Cut education and human services but let Reilly and his cronies hijack tobacco sales tax, employment tax, fuel tax to line their pockets.....
Bernie,
the real threat to public education is the school district employees define pension benefit. Allentown School District's contributions to fund this benefit will rise 300% in the next five years putting the district 40 million in the red, this calculation includes an annual 4% tax increase.
Scott Armstrong
They are all Dems. What else would they say? Corbett is on track and doing the right thing. The entitlement programs and education are unsustainable at current state funding levels. If the locals want these programs, they should pay.
yet another problem created by greedy unions
Perhaps the leaders who signed that letter should also be commending the Governor for only spending the amount of money that is available, as opposed to the status quo of raising taxes, wiping out small businesses, and creating an atmosphere of entitlement, when people lose their homes.
Perhaps the leaders who signed that letter should review their own behavior of 12% raises for union contracts, artifical turf for ball fields, Taj Mahal building expansions, and failing to get their own spending under control.
Human services is loaded with waste, fraud and abuse. Stoffa needs to dig a little deeper to find out why professional nurses assigned to mentally retarded citizens are providing 24/7 private duty care under a contact which allows the provider to bill $85.00 per hour, when the nurse is paid $24.00 per hour.
A gas drilling company will receive a $68 million dollar a year tax reprieve for the next 25 years. That is $1.7 BILLION dollars. In addition to being able to not pay an excise tax, now we learn that we are just giving tax dollars away to gas companies. We also learned that the head of the company has put $300,000 into Corbett's campaign.
All this crap about keeping spending under control is extremely hollow when we see stories like this.
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/Corbetts-Shell-game-A-brand-new-way-to-frack-our-school-kids.html?cmpid=124488489
Oh, and anybody buying the jobs numbers can line up to buy the bridge I have for sale. Those jobs, if they actually materialize (they won't) will be filled with roughnecks from Texas and Oklahoma who come in to work for 3 weeks and then spend the next week off partying in small towns with no police forces. Then they spread STD's, ransack the town and head off to do the same to the next town. It's been happening in Towanda for a few years.
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2011/10/small_towns_see_increase_in_cr.html
So yeah, Scott... its the teachers fault. Read that number at the top again: $68 million a year. Puts your $40 million over five years to absolute shame. But hey, you voted for Tom Corbett didn't you?
@ 7:07 am -
Well said.
That is some group Stoffa decided to jump in with. Guridy and the Vulcanos? Senility setting upon him in his political twilight, or, perhaps, he is simply coming out of the closet now that he swims in the pond of the lame duck.
Ditch the shift = Don't you realize we have created bloated local bureaucracies, filled with overcompensated underachievers, that cannot sustain themselves. We simply must have state and federal funds, even if you must borrow it from future generations. More important, we're still hungry, despite decades of binging at trough.
-Clem
Bernie -
I think it's easy to look to the state (or anyone else) to come up with the money that the local officials are unwilling to spend themselves. But the state's been overspending for years, and that needs to stop.
Also, how significant is a letter signed by only 52 local officials from ACROSS the ENTIRE state?
Perhaps the local officials signing can offer to kick in some of their own cash to fund the spending that they deem vital. Or at least they could identify some state funding that their communities could do without (instead of the proposed cuts). To do neither and just expect the state to continue their overspending is a bit irresponsible.
I think we all can agree that education and human services are important. But government needs to follow what the private sector's been doing all along - find ways to do more with less.
5:56 School district employees have paid their fair share into PSERS week in and week out. Because district administration chose to postpone their share is not the workers' fault. The districts should have been paying their share all along and then we wouldn't be in this situation. Time to pay the piper, or so they say. The workers have - they have no choice, it's automatically deducted and sent in.
"overcompensated underachievers" - An obvious cry of envy and jealousy from our favorite pajama poster.
But government needs to follow what the private sector's been doing all along - find ways to do more with less.
You might want to look into the staffing cuts and pay freezes around the state. And anyway, you are perpetuating a myth that government functions like private business. It doesn't, shouldn't, and never will.
"I think we all can agree that education and human services are important. But government needs to follow what the private sector's been doing all along - find ways to do more with less."
If we agree on the importance, the funding needs to be restored. It makes fiscal sense, too. People without education and who are suffering from a myriad of mental demons will fill our jails, costing us much more in the ng run than we send now. Corbett's budget is penny wise and pound foolish. He really should reconsider, especially now that the revenue shortfalls are as dire as was initially predicted.
Yawn.
Just so long as there is money for the magnificent $ 220.0 million dollar Palace of Sport ...
;-)
ALLENTOWN DEMOCRAT VOTER ON BOARD 100% WITH NIZ
I am so tired of public employees and unions being blamed for the crisis we are living through. The Republicans have done a thorough job setting them up as the straw men. Let's not forget that bankers, those "extraordinarily overpaid" greedy risk takers who gamble with our money and are still doing it are the actual people that brought us down. Just think about the progression of events.
When Harrisburg cuts taxes it exposes the fiscal irresponsibility of local taxing bodies, especially school districts. Blaming the state for local budget problems has gotten old. Easton is providing 6% increases in each of the next three years and wonders why it's had to fire 100+ teachers in two years. There is never drama in an EASD election or budget vote. Never. Locals want control. But they can't handle control. Pocono Mountain built a second, muti-million dollar high school. Now, they can't even fill the first one. Easton likes pools and astroturf and all kinds of stuff, while kids share text books. Most school districts are similarly mismanaged. Few will consider regionalization (to eliminate a whopping eight NorCo school districts) or privatizing maintenance and busing services. This isn't Harrisburg's fault. Just like spoiled children, the locals are throwing a tantrum because they've finally been told "no." Tough love is difficult to administer. But it usually yields positive results. I'm surprised at Cusick's view of state tax cuts and suspect he's been inaccurately characterized.
11:11,
When do we give the gas company getting $1.7 billion in tax dollars tough love? Before or after we tell kids that we are eliminating honor science classes?
Honor science classes are no longer needed.
The Phantoms and the transformative Palace of Sport are coming to save the day!
Anonymous 9:15
What is the fair share teachers should be paying into their pension funds? Basically what percentage of the total cost of their pension should the teachers pay? In my opinion 6-7% of their salary for a defined benefit with a multiplier of 2.5% is not their fair share.
Stoffa is a dyed in the wool liberal who likes to talk conservative. He inherited the largest cash surplus in county history and has blowed it over the past eight years.
In Human Services, Stoffa has spent millions of "extra" dollars not called for by the state. No one in the Press or on Council has called him on this. Some of the contracts are crazy.
Anon 7:07 is right and that is just the tip of the iceberg. They talk of over matching the needed state dollars, well Stoffa and company have been on an over matching binge.
They spend millions and millions on contracts no one oversees and checks on. That Department is so bloated with cash going to private "favored" companies the next guy in charge will have to bring a mop to clean up the slop.
This anonymous coward has been singing the same song for years. Nobody is buying what you're selling.
teachers must learn to actually care about education and teach to teach for the children's future - not to insure their own greedy ambitions and future.
human resources must learn to serve only the truly needy - not the users of the system. Second thing they need to learn and respect is - TS PEOPLE DIE!!!! That's the way it is - get over it and move on...............
So yeah, Scott... its the teachers fault. Read that number at the top again: $68 million a year. Puts your $40 million over five years to absolute shame. But hey, you voted for Tom Corbett didn't you?
8:34 AM
What is the point here? The ASD could face an annual 40 million dollar deficit after 2017. Let me add the detail that presently the ASD had a reserve fund of around 25 million dollars, on top of the annual 4% tax increases this reserve fund will also be gone.
Does this clue you in to the real problem facing public education? The cost of employing people has become unsustainable. What is the solution? Ask tax payers to carry ever heavier tax burdens so that those who work for the school districts can live larger and more comfortably than they(taxpayers) do?
Scott Armstrong
Anon 3:28 is right on the money. An employee who knows!
Actually, you're 3:28 and you're agreeing with yourself.
Wow O'Hare you really have become a real suck up to your new best friend politician.
Bernie,
ALERT
Corbett just announced and gave Shell Oil Co, a no TAX pledge and TAX CREDITS to build a plant in Beaver Co. Everyone is upset, "Think Tanks" and Tax payer organizations....Check it out!
Bernie,
Further, A Republican State Rep. from the State College Area proposed a new Bill on Charter Schools...Their Budgets must be Public etc. There's something new!
Check it out!
Bernie O'Hare said:
"If we agree on the importance, the funding needs to be restored."
Bernie -
We should have learned by now that money is not the problem.
Look at the school district budgets over the past ten years. They've been spending more than ever, yet the results are declining.
We need to stop assuming that more money (or more government involvement, depending on the area) means there will be a better result.
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