Budget goes to governor
Wolf signals he won’t rush decision on bills
HARRISBURG — Three months, three weeks and five days past deadline, Gov. Tom Wolf has been presented a plan for a balanced budget.
The question now for the Democratic governor: To sign or not?
The revenue bills approved this week by the Republican-controlled Legislature in the hopes of ending the state’s stubborn budget impasse contain few of the big-ticket policy and tax changes Mr. Wolf wanted, particularily a new tax on natural gas drilling companies.
The package that did pass — the spending blueprint in June and the funding proposal this week — also includes items he sought, such as $100 million more for public schools and $30 million more for early childhood education.
Mr. Wolf will have 10 days from the time the bills land on his desk to decide what to do. And on Thursday, the governor signaled he would not rush a decision. Instead,
he continued his administration’s aggressive push for a natural gas severance tax — something he has advocated since his 2014 campaign.
“I am calling on the House Republicans to get back to work, finish the job, get us that severance tax,” Mr. Wolf told reporters during a stop in Philadelphia, citing the primary roadblock in the Capitol to enacting the tax. “I don’t understand why it’s a heavy lift at all.”
Earlier this year, Mr. Wolf had proposed a 6.5 percent severance tax on natural gas production, while giving the drillingcompanies credit for what they already pay in impact fees. His administration said the plan would have raised just shy of $294 million this fiscal year. The Senate narrowly passed a plan that included a severance tax, among other new levies, but the proposal died inthe House.
The revenue package that eventually cleared both chambers relies heavily on borrowing and dipping into special state funds for projects ranging from transportation to environmental cleanup — although it was not immediately clear which fundswould be raided.
It also calls for a major expansion of legalized gaming. The gambling bill, pushed through the Republican-controlled Legislature this week in less than 24 hours, would bring in $200 million this fiscal year and less in future years.
It is one of the cornerstones in a plan that also involves borrowing $1.5 billion to be repaid with proceeds from the landmark settlement with tobacco companies, taxing the sale of fireworks and applying the state’s 6 percent sales tax to goods sold on online marketplacessuch as Amazon.
The state House approved the gambling bill Thursday morning, after hours of debate.
Supporters have argued that the bill allows the state to collect money on forms of unregulated gambling that already occur. Opponents have expressed concerns about the way an expansion would affect communities and the speed with which the latest bill cruised through the Legislature. Republican and Democratic leaders said there were parts of the bills they would changeif they could.
“I would prefer to do it other ways, but this is what we can get done, and we got it done,” said House Minority Leader Frank Dermody, DOakmont. He added later: “I’ve got to believe that there’s a limit as to how much we’re going to achieve from gaming, and I don’t know whether we’ve reached that or not. I guess we’re going to see.”
Majority Leader Dave Reed, R-Indiana, said passage of the budget bill opens the way for work on other issues when legislators return to session in November. Thursday’s vote “means we can moveon,” he said.
Gambling expansion had been a sticking point as legislators struggled to close a deficit that was more than $2 billion. They passed a nearly $32 billion spending plan July 1 but couldn’t agree on how to pay for it. The prolonged impasse led to a credit downgradelast month.
The gambling bill allows for the creation of 10 “mini-casinos” around the state that couldoperate between 300 and 750 slot machines and 30 table games. Licenses for the minicasinos would be auctioned off first to current casino operators in Pennsylvania. Generally, they could not be located within a 25-mile radius of an existing casino, and municipalities would have the option to reject having one within theirborders.
It also legalizes some online gambling and permits truck stops to have five videogaming terminals — or slotslike machines.
The gaming bill passed the Senate without debate Wednesday night. It encountered some opposition in the House, where some representatives tried to postpone a vote, arguing they hadn’t had enough time to read the 939page bill.
When they reconvened about 8:30 a.m. Thursday, some representatives continued to express concerns about whether the bill had beenproperly vetted.
Rep. Madeleine Dean, DMontgomery, said she feared some language in the bill was “faulty,” noting, among other things, that there were loopholes in the provision allowing video-gaming terminals at truck stops.
Reading two sections of the bill, she said, left her with “more questions than answers.”
But after more than two hours, the debate halted and the chamber voted, 109-72, to approve the bill, putting its fate into the governor’s hands.