Senate+GOP+proposes+27.65+billion+budget,+restores+almost+all+higher+ed+cuts

= Senate GOP budget proposal would spend $500 million more than Gov. Tom Corbett's plan, but they say it is only a 1.8 percent increase, and would fit under a TABOR law that limits budget hikes. = = = =By Peter L. DeCoursey= =Published by Capitolwire= =5/7/12= = = = = = = = = =HARRISBURG (May 7) – Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Jake Corman, R-Centre, previewed a budget package the panel will consider Tuesday and the Senate could vote upon Wednesday.= = = = It hikes Gov. Tom Corbett’s $27.15 billion proposed budget to $27.65 billion. It also restores $245 million in funds for higher education, putting back 97 percent of the $253 million cut by Gov. Tom Corbett. It also cuts $165 million in unspecified programs from the Corbett budget.= = = =The Senate GOP plan also offers a thumbs-down to $191 million in transfers and revenues proposed by Corbett’s budget.= = = =“It is a good step forward. It restores $500 million in cuts and we are encouraged by how our Senate Republican colleagues have worked with us to move towards our Senate Democratic budget priorities we laid out in February. There is more work to do, but this is a very positive step,” said Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa, D-Allegheny.= = = =Corbett administration officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.= = = =Speaking to township officials Monday morning in Hershey, the governor defended his higher education spending cuts, especially his proposed 30 percent cuts for Penn State, Pitt and Temple universities, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.= = = ="It's not that I'm against Pitt or Penn State or Temple, but I don't have the money," Mr. Corbett told the packed ballroom.= = = = House GOP spokesman Steve Miskin said: "We are working with the Senate crafting a budget. If there's any sustainable revenues, we believe those monies should go to education first, Basic K-12, then Higher Education. And then some of the county human services, mental health/mental retardation/ intellectual disabilities."= = = = The Senate GOP plan also does not propose block-granting most education funds and county welfare funds, despite Gov. Corbett’s plans to enact both ideas in this year’s budget, Corman said. = = = = “We break those lines out, as we did in the past, into separate lines, like last year’s,” said Corman. “We fund those line times at basically the same level as last year. So that discussion will go on. = = = = “We are not saying no to block granting the entire education formula and major subsidies, but it’s not in that proposal.” = = = = Of the Corbett proposal to block-grant that funding, Corman said: “There’s a lot of people opposed to it, we have to sit back and get a feel from school districts as to what they want to do with it.” = = = = But the Senate GOP budget does propose to fund education accountability block grants, which Corbett has proposed to delete two years in a row, at $50 million. That program was $250 million before Corbett took office. Last year lawmakers insisted on adding $100 million for that program to be spent this year, but funded it with a last-minute boost to the previous year’s budget. = = = = Sources said the House GOP will now have about $80 million to restore either the remaining $50 million for the education block grant or $80 million for the county human services funding. = = = =The bill also limits growth to less than the 1.8-percent spending increase that would be allowed if the state had passed the Taxpayer Bill of Rights or TABOR bill. The bill comes in $80 million under the level that would be allowed if a TABOR proposal had passed here, Corman said.= = = =“We believe the budget should never increase higher than TABOR would allow, so we can be sure we have sustainable growth in the budget,” Corman said.= = = =That calculation is based on assuming this year’s spend to be $27.15 billion. If the $100 million education block grant spent this year is counted, the proposed increase is 1.5 percent.= = = =“We think this is a responsible, sustainable level of state spending,” Corman said.= = = =About $40 million in revenues beyond those proposed by Corbett are in the Senate plan, mostly from recalculating welfare and school district employee Social Security costs based on more recent data, Corman said.= = = = So of the $800 million in revenues above those predicted by Corbett by the Independent Fiscal Office, the Senate plan will use about $500 million of the surplus for spending restorations. The $165 million in unspecified spending cuts will offset most of the $191 million in Senate-rejected revenues, Corman said.= = = =The plan also restores half of the $168 million Corbett proposed slicing from county-run welfare programs for mental health and mental retardation. As with overall education funding, the Senate did not specify that funding go in a block grant, as Corbett proposed.= = = =“We didn’t get into whether it was block-granted or not,” Corman said. “We just reduced the 20-percent cut to a 10-percent cut.”= = = =Where Gov. Corbett proposed to take $59 million from the CURE fund for medical research in the state Tobacco lawsuit settlement fund, the Senate proposed to leave that funding intact. They also left most of the funding Corbett proposed to take from the Horse Racing Fund supported by slots revenues. Corbett proposed to cut $75 million, but the Senate cut only $3 million to subsidize the Farm Show Products Fund.= = = =The $41 million that Corbett sought to claim by reducing the vendor discount for sales tax collection was also rejected by the Senate budget.= = = =The Senate also sliced in half the $38 million reduction Corbett proposed in the Key ’93 Fund, reducing it to a $19 million cut.= = = =Of the $253 million in reductions proposed by the governor, only $8 million of the $19 million in reductions to PHEAA grants are proposed in the Senate GOP budget.= = = =“The governor proposed a $19 million cut for PHEAA grants,” Corman said. “We cut $8 million. Other than for community colleges, the state system universities and the state-related universities” of Pitt, Penn State, Temple and Lincoln, “are back at last year’s levels.”= = = = The Senate GOP restored $14 million cut by Corbett from early childhood education. The governor’s cuts amounted to 2 percent.= = = =For predicting revenues, Corman said: “We followed the revenue update from the fiscal office. We created them, I thought we better use them. And their prediction was very similar to our numbers.”= = = =In K-12 basic education funding, state funding for Social Security payments declined slightly, Corman said: “Our latest payroll information shows a little less is needed than the governor estimated in February.”= = = = = = = = = =News= =home=