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On top of the already extremely high school property tax now tax payer's will have to pay for the school districts borrowing to meet their budget because of no state budget.
Pa. schools may lose ability to borrow
Read the full story here:
HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania's long budget stalemate could soon make it impossible for some of the state's poorest school districts to get another loan to stay open.New York-based Standard & Poor's credit rating agency said it has withdrawn its ratings based on a state government program that can help school districts get more favorable loan terms by giving a guarantee to repay bondholders.
In a Friday note, Standard & Poor's said Pennsylvania cannot ensure the timely payment of debt service because of the stalemate."While we consider school aid to be a priority state expenditure, the budget stalemate has led us to conclude that Pennsylvania's state aid payments are no longer a reliable and stable source of funds," Standard & Poor's wrote.Budgets that are passed late are not unique to Pennsylvania, but Standard & Poor's said it considers the length of Pennsylvania's stalemate and the frequency to be an anomaly.
The Pennsylvania Treasury Department's chief counsel, Christopher Craig, said Monday that if the other ratings agencies were to follow suit, the school districts would effectively be cut off from the debt market, or the cost to borrow would be so high that they could not afford it."The budget impasse is now having very significant financial consequences," Craig said.
The state auditor general's office has tallied about $900 million in borrowing by Pennsylvania school districts to get through the impasse, including $525 million by Philadelphia. That total will exceed $1 billion if the stalemate remains intact until January, Auditor General Eugene DePasquale said last week.
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I'm afraid the taxpayers via increased school taxes will get stuck paying for the interest in all this borrowing.
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All taxpayers/voters in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania should write their senator and representative to inform them that the taxpayers will not be held responsible for expenses derived from the failure of the state legislature to agree upon and pass a budget as required by the state constitution in a timely manner. This is a situation created by their abdication of their sworn duty and it will be their responsibility to cover any shortfall within the budget they finally pass. Even if that means they will not get paid for not doing their jobs. Don't roll over and accept the fiscal burden they created. Make them take the responsibility to fix the problem within the budget structure, not through increased taxes to homeowners.
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The entire General Assembly (PA house of representatives) stands for election next year.
Just sayin'.
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If I was rich I'd take out billboards and full-page ads in major PA newspapers next year in an attempt to get voters attention sufficiently to vote all PA legislators who are running for reelection out of office.
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Sack them all ! ! In the next election, if you vote FOR your incumbent representative, you are part of the problem.
Per PENNLIVE:
Pa. budget deal slips with pension reform defeat in the House; stopgap plan comes new possibility
With a public pension employee reform bill resoundingly defeated in the state House Saturday, House Majority Leader David Reed, R-Indiana County, conceded the proposed "framework" budget is likely off-track.
Reed said one leading option to try to get some resolution to Pennsylvania's six-month state budget impasse before Christmas would be a renewed effort to pass a stopgap funding bill.
A stopgap measure would be designed to drive out some portion of state aid to school districts, counties and other their parties that have been forced to scrape by without it since the current fiscal year began July 1.
But any interim funding measure would likely contain a lower spending number for schools and human services agencies than the $30.8 billion "framework" budget Gov. Tom Wolf had been lobbying for this week.
Reed said that's because both his leadership team and Senate Republican leaders have insisted on significant action on the state's major cost driver - swollen pension liabilities - in exchange for imposing new taxes on Pennsylvanians.
"We said from the very beginning we are not looking at additional revenue sources until we address the number one cost driver for the state and the school districts," Reed said.
"If that's not possible, then new revenue is off the table as well, and we're going to have to plan accordingly."
Reed could not offer any specifics on a stopgap plan, if that becomes the plan of choice, noting final numbers will depend on fresh looks at revenue projections, economic outlooks and other factors.
Senate GOP leaders did not immediately endorse the stopgap concept, but told Reed they needed time to think about next steps. Reed said those cross-chamber conversations will continue through the day.
"Obviously a full-year budget was priority number one. Obviously that's not possible given the vote today," Reed said. "So we've got to go to option B."
Wolf Administration officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
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Gee, you would think the largest, highest paid, full-time state legislature in the nation would do better than this.
Ooooops, maybe because they are the largest, highest paid, full-time state legislature in the nation is the problem. Too many chiefs, not enough Indians.
Did any of you who have served on committees notice that .............. The larger the committee, the harder it is to get things done.
If you've never served on a committee, try volunteering to join a big one and then join a small one and get back to me.
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A lot of frustration in the building?
Are these guys deaf, dumb, and blind?
What about the frustration among the constituents?
Pay us before you pay them?
What a bunch of selfish bastards. Vote them out of office next election.
Exclusive: Pay us before schools or no budget deal, House Repubs write in email
With the state budget stuck in park and the Christmas holiday looming, some House Republicans are mulling the mother of all squeeze plays to shake a deal loose with the Democratic Wolf administration.
In an email chain obtained by PennLive, two rank-and-file House members, who are among a conservative faction the most loudly critical of Gov. Tom Wolf, war-gamed out legislative maneuvers to end the six-month old stalemate.
The lawmakers, Reps. Eli Evankovich, R-Allegheny, and Jim Cox, R-Berks, want to force Wolf to fund the General Assembly before he's sent a bill that would fund the rest of state government - apparently including cash-strapped schools and nonprofit organizations.
The Republican-controlled House is set to vote Monday on a stop-gap funding bill that would provide some money for school districts and non-profit organizations, which have been going without taxpayer-support since the new fiscal year started on July 1.
"My hope is that when we return, we first run [Wolf's] tax code bill, allowing it to fail, then send him an emergency funding bill excluding funds for the Governor's operations and the General Assembly but including a new line item for 'continued state government operations,'" Evankovich wrote.
In an email sent a few hours later, Cox muses on whether the House can send Wolf two versions of what's known as the "fiscal code" bill --one providing funding for the General Assembly, the second for the rest of state government.
"We would only send him [Wolf] the second Fiscal code bill after he actually signs the funding for our operations," Cox wrote, after acknowledging that former Gov. Tom Corbett "line-item vetoed us out of the Fiscal Code last year."
But, he added, "I do believe we have to find a way to fund our operations," because the four legislative caucuses have all borrowed money to continue operating.
Cox's email was sent to all 119 House Republicans, including Majority Leader Dave Reed, R-Indiana.
With tensions running high, the email exchange infuriated the Democratic administration, which, joined by House and Senate Democrats, as well as majority Senate Republicans, has been pressing the case for a $30.8 billion compromise budget framework for more than a month.
That package would be funded through what's believed to be an expanded state income tax and a possible increase in Pennsylvania's personal income tax.
The House favors a smaller, $30.3 billion budget plan, which would be funded, in part, through an expanded tobacco tax and proposed new gaming revenues.
In an email sent shortly after 8:30 a.m. on Sunday, Evankovich, said he feared Wolf would wield his veto pen to strike "the General Assembly['s] line items and continue to push for his taxes," if the House and Senate send him a stopgap package.
Wolf, along with the Senate Democrats and GOP, as well as House Democrats, oppose the stopgap bill envisioned by House Republicans.
Senate Republicans, however, say they will not consider the taxes included in Wolf's budget unless he signs a pension reform bill - which went down to defeat in the House on Saturday, precipitating the current crisis.
Wolf has claimed he's lined up the Republican and Democratic votes to pass his tax plan in the House and send it to the Senate.
In his email, Evankovich says the GOP will be "giving the Governor a very strong talking point against our efforts if we do not run his tax plan on the floor and allow it to fail prior to sending the emergency funding bill to his desk," Evankovich wrote.
Neither Cox nor Evankovich could immediately be reached for comment for this story.
Reed's spokesman, Steve Miskin, said GOP leaders are not contemplating such a squeeze play.
But Miskin did acknowledge that the exchange -- which was verified by PennLive -- underscores the level of frustration felt among rank-and-file House members as this year's seemingly interminable budget debate drags onward.
"The while building is feeling the frustration," he said.
The House Rules Committee is set to vote on the fiscal code bill on Monday, Miskin said.
It is one of several pieces of enabling legislation that essentially serve as the instructional manual for spending the money included in the General Fund budget bill.
The House hopes to send the approved fiscal code, which is facing its own controversies, to the Senate on Wednesday, Miskin said.
Wolf administration spokesman Jeffrey Sheridan pounced on the email chain Sunday, charging that it was putting its own interests ahead of cash-strapped schools and non-profits. The chain provoked similar ire elsewhere in the Capitol.
"We need a budget now. a stopgap is something we're not going to accept. We want to fund our schools with a full-year budget," he said. "It's long past time for a budget to happen. We're entering the week of Christmas. The time to talk about stopgaps and the ultimatums has passed."
But after a year in which the Democratic Governors Association, in support of Wolf, blasted the GOP lawmakers' home districts with critical mailers and TV ads, Miskin said the administration shouldn't be shocked at lingering hostility.
"There's a lot of frustration in the entire building," he said.
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This constituent/taxpayer's frustration is that within the next 72 hours there will most likely be a vote on a revenue--that's taxes and fees for those in Sinsheim--and spending bill that few rank and file law makers will have had time to read much less comprehend.
Does that sound eerily like something which happened on the Federal level just before Christmas in 2009?