NEWS FLASH: Pa. Legislature sends $27.8B budget to Rendell

It took 101 days into the new fiscal year, but the country's most expensive state legislatures has finally agreed on a budget for 2009-10.

From Marc Levy of The Associated Press:

A $27.8 billion state budget was on its way to the desk of Gov. Ed Rendell following a lopsided vote of approval from the Senate — a giant step toward ending Pennsylvania's 101-day budget stalemate, the nation's longest this year.

The 42-7 Senate's vote followed House approval on Wednesday.

The Senate voted without debate moments after signing off on a companion bill to tap more than $1.5 billion from the state's reserves. That bill still awaited House approval.

Rendell has said he would sign the appropriations bill, but it was unclear whether he would do so before the House passes the companion bill.

The appropriations bill cuts overall spending by more than 1 percent, while boosting spending on operations and instruction in public schools by $300 million, or 5.7 percent, a level that Rendell insisted upon.

The politically divided Legislature has been stymied by how to resolve a multibillion-dollar, recession-driven shortfall.

The final agreement relies on a blend of federal budget aid, transfer from reserve funds, spending cuts and nearly $500 million in new taxes on sales of cigarettes, little cigars and businesses that pay the capital stock and franchise tax.

The plan also relies on legalizing and taxing table games at the state's slot-machine casinos and leasing more state forest land to natural gas exploration companies.

According to the most recent Quinnipiac University Poll, only 27 percent of Pennsylvania voters approve of the job the Pennsylvania Legislature is doing.

That's the Legislature's lowest job approval number since October 2005, when the job approval rating was an all-time low of 26%, according to Quinnipiac.

The 2005 ranking came a few months after the Legislature voted itself a middle-of-the-night pay raise.

Four years of incompetence and disregard for the taxpayer has brought the Legislature back to familiar territory.

Pennsylvania continues to lead the nation in teacher strikes even though Pennsylvania teachers are among the highest paid in the U.S.

Trying to make sense of this contradiction is one of the goals of Stop Teacher Strikes Inc., the Pennsylvania-based advocacy group working to prevent teacher strikes. (It's illegal in the majority of states for teachers to strike.)

In order to have a fair debate about teacher compensation, you have to start with the facts. How much do Pennsylvania teachers earn?

Stop Teacher Strikes Inc. has a link at its Web site to a database that lists 195,000 Pennsylvania public school employee names and salaries.

The searchable statewide database, which includes teachers and administrators, is accessible via www.stopteacherstrikes.org

The database originated at the Asbury Park Press Web site http://php.app.com/PAteachers/search.php

Another good source of information about public education in Pennsylvania is School Board Transparency.

From a recent press release issued by Simon Campbell, president of StopTeacherStrikes Inc.:

"With the most recent salary data (2007-2008) now released by the Pennsylvania Department of Education, the Asbury Park Press has once again done an outstanding job at bringing searchable public information to millions of Pennsylvania residents. Any Pennsylvania public school student can now research the salary of his or her teacher to gain an understanding of Pennsylvania's Right-to-Know-Law, and appreciate the difference between public sector and private sector employees. Taxpayers can also review how much money all school employees make, to see how public money is being allocated. The publishing of this data may also help taxpayers understand why some public servants feel the need to eject children from their classrooms by going on strike for higher compensation.

Also profiled on the new "Pension Scheme" Web page of www.stopteacherstrikes.org is the manner in which Pennsylvania State Education Association President (PSEA) union president James Testerman is able to collect a teacher's salary for not being a teacher; thereby enabling him to obtain a taxpayer-guaranteed public employee pension plan for the nine years and counting he has spent working for a private organization. This scheme is also being used by other teacher union officials.

With the Pennsylvania school employee retirement fund in crisis and facing a massive shortfall in 2012-2013, the message is clear. If you don't actually work as a public employee, yet you want a defined-benefit public employee pension plan that taxpayers will bail out, just find a way to become a union boss."

With one month to go in the current fiscal year, Pennsylvania's General Fund budget is $2.8 billion in the red.

The Pennsylvania Department of Revenue released the May tax revenue numbers today and the state's bottom line is not looking so good.

Pennsylvania collected $1.6 billion in General Fund revenue in May, which was $287.5 million, or 15.1 percent, less than anticipated, according to Revenue Secretary Stephen H. Stetler. Fiscal year-to-date General Fund collections total $23.3 billion, which is $2.8 billion, or 10.9 percent, below estimate, Stetler reported.

Gov. Ed Rendell, who signed the deficit budget last July knowing it would never come close to balancing, now projects a deficit of $3.2 billion by the end of the current fiscal year on June 30.

Here's the blow-by-blow breakdown from the Revenue Department:

Sales tax receipts totaled $607.4 million for May, $106.4 million below estimate. Sales tax collections, year-to-date, total $7.5 billion, which is $527.7 million, or 6.6 percent, less than anticipated.

Personal income tax (PIT) revenue in May was $721.4 million, $55.7 million below estimate. This brings year-to-date PIT collections to $9.4 billion, which is $1.1 billion, or 10.4 percent, below estimate.

May corporation tax revenue of $81.6 million was $38.8 million below estimate. Year-to-date corporation tax collections total $4.4 billion, which is $531.4 million, or 10.7 percent, below estimate.

Other General Fund revenue figures for the month included $65.3 million in inheritance tax, $10.8 million below estimate, bringing the year-to-date total to $704.5 million, which is $94.4 million below estimate.

Realty transfer tax was $18.6 million for May, $12.2 million below estimate, bringing the total to $267.3 million for the year, which is $105.2 million less than anticipated.

Other General Fund tax revenue including cigarette, malt beverage and liquor taxes totaled $83.3 million for the month, $10.4 million below estimate, bringing the year-to-date total to $958.2 million, which is $21.2 million below estimate.