Election-year jitters cure Pa. budget blues

For the first time since Gov. Tom Wolf took office, Pennsylvania has a signed budget before July 1.

Check your calendar. It is June 24. It is officially summer, having ushered that in Thursday morning. We enter July exactly one week from today.

This is usually accompanied by wailing and gnashing of teeth in the state capital, where our elected representatives routinely have taken up sides in the bitter turf war known as putting together the state budget.

For the past three years, Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf and Republican leaders who control the House and Senate have pushed this process past the “deadlock” stage and into the realm of Mortal Kombat.

Wolf consistently has proposed budgets that include hefty hikes in education spending, along with tax hikes to pay for them. He has constantly urged representatives and senators to enact a new severance tax on the state’s natural gas drilling industry, to replace the “impact fee” enacted by his predecessor, Republican Gov. Tom Corbett, who was dancing around a pledge not to enact any new taxes. Wolf at one point even suggested hefty increases in both the state sales and personal income taxes. Republicans who consider any kind of new tax something akin to anathema almost laughed themselves silly. Not this year. This week the House passed a $32.7 billion spending plan with very little in the way of debate – and even less rancor.

The Senate voted 47-2 in favor on Friday, sending the bill to the governor for his signature, which he promised to provide.

Yes, we applaud the fact that the state will not be dragged through yet another costly budget stalemate, including the possibility of layoffs and shutting down state government and critical services.

That too often leaves local municipalities holding the bill. During the last shutdown counties had to foot the bill for critical services.

In case you were wondering why this year is so different than the fiscal follies that so often accompany the budget process in Harrisburg, we remind you that this is an election year.

Gov. Wolf is running for a second term, opposed by former Sen. Scott Wager, one of those conservative firebrands who constantly remind citizens that Wolf has wanted to raise their taxes every year since taking office. Wolf did not need a budget standoff hanging over his head as he crisscrosses the state on the campaign trail.

In addition, every member of the state House is on the ballot, along with half of the Senate. None of them would be especially enamored of the thought of having a tax hike or government shutdown hanging around their neck as they seek re-election.

That’s the biggest reason this spending plan is a lock to be delivered on time, and without any significant increase in taxes.

There are things to like here, including millions more for Wolf’s pet project, education, which stands to see another $100 million more for public schools, $254 million more for early childhood education, and $15 million for special education.

It is hoped that a 3 percent boost in funding for state-related universities, including Penn State, will convince officials to hold the line on tuition.

Overall the plan increases spending by about $700 million , about 2 percent more than last year’s budget.

Wolf backed off his routine of asking for huge increases in spending and hefty tax hikes.

But there remains something unseemly about how “convenient” this process becomes when it is expedient for a bunch of folks seeking re-election.

This is the people’s business – and their dollars – but very little of what went into this spending plan was done in the sunshine. When it comes to transparency, this process was a virtual eclipse.

Credit better than expected revenue projections for much of the new spending. But the state still faces serious issues – ones that this spending plan does not address.

There is still the matter of a fair, equitable education funding system to replace the reliance on property taxes. The state’s two major public employee pension plans are still swimming in red ink. Medicaid costs continue to rise. Borrowing costs tied to school construction are rising.

So there you have it, a handydandy, on-time, no-tax-hike budget.

Fairy tales do come true. And they can happen to you, especially if you are running for reelection in Pennsylvania.