State Representative Mike Schlossberg (D-Allentown) said that the budget doesn’t solve problems, but, “resorts to one-time funding gimmicks.” He also accused Governor Corbett and his Republican-controlled legislature of cutting $1 billion in education funding while letting oil and gas companies get a free ride.
State Representative Dan McNeill said that he is, “standing strong with the teachers of Pennsylvania to ensure that our next generation has fully-funded schools and that our hard working teachers get the pensions that they have earned.”
Michael Beyer, running against Justin Simmons for the State House seat that includes parts of southern Lehigh and Northampton Counties, said, “With each budget providing fewer dollars going to actual classrooms, even some of the most well-off districts like Saucon Valley and Southern Lehigh, are forced to raise local property taxes and cut staff and programs.”
Terri Powell, running against Julie Harhart in Northampton and parts of Lehigh County, said, “This budget looks to balance the budget on the backs of teachers and students while still letting the oil and gas companies, some of the most profitable in the Commonwealth, drill in our backyards basically for free.”
(Blogger's Note: Independent Michael Molovinsky is also running in that race).
Leslie Altieri (D-Bethlehem Township), running against Marcia Hahn in Northampton County, said that, “The reality is that Corbett and Hahn have left public education spending at its lowest level in years and have been overly optimistic on tax revenues and left us facing a $1.4 billion hole in the budget
A chart with data compiled from the PSEA and recent school board budgets shows the real impacts of the last budgets proposed and passed by Corbett and his clones in the Pennsylvania General Assembly.
Effect of State Funding Changes on Lehigh and Northampton School Real Estate Taxes
| |||
School District
|
2013/2014 Tax Increase
|
2014/2015 Tax Increase
|
Change in Funding from PA since 2010/2011*
|
Catasauqua SD
|
1.30%
|
2.60%
|
-$280,678.00
|
Northern Lehigh SD
|
2.30%
|
2.80%
|
-$720,082.00
|
Northampton SD
|
2.47%
|
2.47%
|
-$1,224,003.00
|
Whitehall-Coplay SD
|
3.27%
|
3.30%
|
-$302,029.00
|
Parkland SD
|
3.67%
|
1.88%
|
-$200,149.00
|
Allentown SD
|
8.20%
|
5.85%
|
$7,632,500.00
|
Bethlehem SD
|
2.70%
|
4.90%
|
-$6,865,171.00
|
Matt Munsey, Chairman of the Northampton County Democrats, said, “This chart, these cuts, show precisely why we need to re-elect Mike Schlossberg, Steve Samuelson, Dan McNeill and Bob Freeman. It also shows with drastic clarity why we need to elect Tom Wolf as Governor, Michael Beyer, Terri Powell, Leslie Altieri and Pete Schweyer to the State House. We can’t keep letting oil and gas companies get a free pass while hiking taxes on our oldest, most vulnerable citizens and giving short shrift to the next generation.”
30 comments:
The PSEA delivers more teacher strikes and the 41st ranking in SAT scores in the US. Voters would be wise to do exactly opposite of whatever those clowns recommend
What Corbett has done to this state is a travesty.
all the local representatives, both democratic and republican, have avoided an insightful solution to the states fiscal dilemma, the public sector pensions. this path away from underfunded pension liability is the tobash amendment, which would honor all existing pensions, but change the formula for new hires, to a 401 type plan. no proposed plan jeopardized existing pensions, nor is that legally permissible. if i was less diplomatic, i would call all the current representatives disingenuous.
As far as I can tell, I submitted the deleted 4:18PM post. If so, I find that curious.
Fred Windish
The Lehigh Valley has no real leadership in elected leadership!
Dems:
Schlossberg is merely gay friendly and is simply courting a popular vote.
McNeil, Freeman, & Samuelson have done nothing at all but prove me wrong.
GOP:
Hahn is gun nut friendly and as Schlossburg, is getting the low hanging fruit vote.
Emerick, Mackenzie & Simmons are puppets to say the least.
The schools aren't getting enough more money! They should be getting more, more money and we will raise your taxes to do it! Because you don't pay enough taxes to the cesspool of government. After all we know how to spend your money better than you do plabeans!
Get rid of illegals and settle with the citizens kids and you all might make it.
Mr. Molovinsky..your comment is well written and understood but I veheminently disagree with your assessment that all LV state representatives are disingenuous
regarding a solution to the pension dilemma in Pa. All The Republicans in the Lehigh Valley to include:Simmons,Emerick,
MacKenzie, and Hahn ALL want pension reform. They get ZERO campaign support from the PSEA.
Schlossberg,McNeil,Freeman,
Samuelson ALL get huge campaign support from not only the PSEA but from all the Unions.These guys are all in the backpockets of the Unions to say the least which influences their view on pension reform.
The LV Republicans are all behind reform.Its the Democratic contigency that needs to look in the mirror and understand that the majority of tax payers no longer want to pay higher taxes for education and basic services to support their pensions. I am from the private sector and support my own retirement program. The public sector and teacher unions need to do the same otherwise our state goes broke.
Mr. Molovinsky, Your assessment in direct line with my own. I will receive a pension from The City of Easton , But I know it is not going to handle the years my widow survives me. So we were offered a 457 pre-tax and I take advantage of it with no mortgage payment I put about 1/3 of my pay in tax free and it will accumulate as time does. This should be offered to other entities.
People have to put down buying a Lexis or other luxury brand and drive old Buick's Put the pension from salary into a fund and don't expect taxpayers to let you ride forever. It's reality in your face.
I live in Hellertown, and its news to me, that I'm "well off", as Mr. Beyer's stated! I can't afford to pay my bills as it is, never mind supporting tax increases.
Tax and spend liberal progressives. GREAT JOB REPUBLICANS!! Keep my taxes as low as possible. I also don't want my tax money going toward liberal agendized education like so called common core. Who cares what the Dems in the Valley think of the Gov's budget. Who cares.
Great job republicans!!! My ass. They have the majority in both the state house and senate. Where in the hell is pension reform? Who really cares what the Dems have as a solution. They dont have the potential to pass it for lack of votes. The reps have their chance for change and their blowing it. No wonder the Dems are gonna wipe the floor with corbet this november.
The two party gang system and members need to all be removed from office. Schlossberg is a puppet as are the other clowns mentioned.
We need to vote for independent thinkers with no affiliations other than to common sense and the greater good.
Time to eliminate property tax and install a sales and income tax system to pay for our youth to get educated. This is a simple solution as those making more and spending more pay more and make it more equitable.
Bullshit. More money for the overpaid and underworked has never righted the ship. We have been playing that game for years and years and years, at every level from school district to DC.
Anyone here actually know how to measure ROI?
Maybe, just maybe, if people who insist on Taj Mahal schools and astroturf and pensions that make the drunks at UAW look fiscally responsible actually have to pay for "what we must spend", instead of looking to the state and feds for borrowed-money funding, someone might just figure out that the train is off the tracks.
Norco Dems, hah. Any Dems, or any supporters of the public education scam, are chicken little dickwads.
I'll repeat what I wrote 5 years ago on this blog:
There is enough money. You are paying too much per labor unit because the whores in Harrisburg have been purchased by the PSEA terrorists. And, for what?
Soon, hopefully, I'll be telling you about a cheating scandal where a highly visible and decorated student was caught cheating, yet still allowed to retain rank, offices and Honor Society status covered up because it was a child of a favored teacher. Lots of hardworking kids who did it the right way took a back seat and got to watch the sham show. Tip of the iceberg, but that is what you are paying for with your, and other people's money.
Corbett, and the legislature, do us all a disservice by leaving as much in the budget as they have.
Some surprise that teet-milking Dems are pandering. They are simply performing the whores' tasks for which they were paid.
Only the dumbest fuck-fuckety-fuckhead would believe more money is the solution in education. Those douchnozzles are nothing more than selfserving losers who couldn't and wouldn't last a day in the real world. But, they have found themselves a nice niche - pay us or you hate your kids, and even if you are willing to endure that branding, we own the sluts in Harrisburg and our perverts-in-black-robes-trough-feeding-brethren, you rubes.
Only thing more pathetic than their case are the moron public that buy their bullshit.
-Clem
Clem,
I might think you had valid points, but I never pay much attention to people that think vulgarity makes their argument better.
change the formula for new hires,it is the reality.
Sure you don't.
-Clem
The Tobash proposal would do nothing to help the current budget and would probably make this problem worse in the long run.
I see lots of tax hawks here complaining about local property tax. The best place to start is charter school funding. Allentown is going to pay 33 million this year for charters and that is unsustainable and unaffordable. The state gives charters money above and beyond what they need to educate so their for profit vampires can build large homes in Florida. This can be changed by adopting a proper funding formula. Our own auditor general states that we are overspending about $365 million for charters. As for pensions, you cannot just simply eliminate the system because you don't like it. That is not my opinion that is part of the PA state constitution. Why are things the way they are? The legislature in 2001 voted for a big pension increase (people like Rep. Harhart voted yes). Then the state decided not to pay into hte system for years. That is why the system is now costly. They did not pay their bills for years.
Molvinsky what magic will you bring to the pension system? Everything so far does not get at the problem and the fantasy of just eliminating the system is not legal no matter how popular it is.
I am from the private sector and support my own retirement program.
You don't think school employees contribute to their own retirement? Of course they do. The pension just eliminates the risk to the employee that a 401k imposes. Everyone should be for that for every worker.
The pension crisis is not an issue of employees not contributing or ongoing costs being too high. Its a matter of making up for the last 10 years when the PA legislature allowed the district portion to go unpaid. If everyone paid in, like the employees have for the last decade, there would be no issue.
And Clem is full of shit. A bitter, probably balding, curmudgeon who obviously lacks a thorough understanding of macro-economics or the workings of a western society. He believes the free market solves all inefficiencies. THESE types are the most delusional and the most dangerous.
Use argument to make your points, not name-calling. All that does is defeat you.
Hope that was directed at Clem's inane posts. He is unable to make a point without making sweeping generalizations and besmirching many hardworking people.
If the current majority is so gung ho about pension reform, why aren't they looking in the mirror?
WHORES! All of them and you. Its look in the mirror day.
There is pension reform it's called Act 120 it is currently in place and working. "Unfunded Liability" would only come into play if every State worker in the pension fund retired today. I doubt that will happen. The Tobash plan is not the way to go if you really look into it. Veteran's and woman or anyone who takes an unpaid leave would be put into a 401K and taken out of the pension fund no matter there years of service.
Go ahead and cite the "Macro-economic" principle I do not understand.
But, please, spare us the Keynesian and Krugman nonsense.
Meanwhile, here you go, macro-douche:
http://bastiat.mises.org/2014/07/remedy-for-the-failure-of-macroeceonomics-austrian-economics/
-Clem
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