Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman says, “If he can embrace that pension reform bill, then we could find another $300 million for basic education funding from our original budget to meet the $400 he was seeking in his process”.
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Tom Wolf and state Republicans will take another look at a new deal that could end the 50-day impasse.
“If the governor accepts it, it’s huge”, Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati (R., Jefferson) said as he emerged from the talks, which lasted less than 30 minutes. This is a home run grand slam for schools. “The significance of this can’t be stated enough”.
Wolf says a similar reimbursement was extended to school districts after a 2003 budget standoff on education funding that lasted into December.
Schools are also impacted.
The state has had only limited authority to spend money since July 1 while waiting on Wolf and the General Assembly to reach an agreement on a 2015-16 budget plan.
To raise more money for public schools, Wolf has proposed imposing a new tax on the extraction of natural gas from the Marcellus Shale.
Senator Corman says their pension proposal would save $12 billion.
Republicans have rejected that idea.
The move by Republicans meant they were summarily rejecting Wolf’s week-old counterproposal that would have kept most of the traditional pension benefit intact for hundreds of thousands of future public employees. It would not apply to current employees, whose pensions are calculated using a formula that relies on their years of service and highest three years of pay.
Meanwhile, in a subsequent email message to rank-and-file House Republicans on Wednesday, House Majority Leader Dave Reed, R-Indiana, wrote that “liquor privatization must also be agreed to” by Wolf.
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“We put a proposal we believe is best for Pennsylvania”.
