“Unfortunately, that work looks like it’s in peril, deep peril”, said Wolf on Monday.
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During more than an hour of debate, proponents promoted the move as modernizing the tax code and public school funding by ridding the state of a tax that doesn’t reflect one’s ability to pay and puts the fixed-income elderly at risk of being forced out of their homes.
Wolf has made it very clear he wants any budget deal to include property tax relief. “But let’s get the general fund budget done now if we’re not going to come to agreement on this, ‘ and it’s clear that we weren’t”, Corman told reporters in the Capitol.
Pennsylvania’s Senate majority leader said efforts to secure $1.4 billion in school property tax rebates for homeowners as part of a broader budget deal has hit a wall over which districts will get the biggest benefit. They objected to the amount that Wolf wants to send to Philadelphia schools under a formula that favors poorer districts.
The sides also disagreed over stronger measures Republicans sought to make it harder for school boards to raise taxes, Corman said. According to the Pennsylvania, Budget and Policy Center, sales tax will increase on a range of products and services including for the first time, sales tax on food.
School districts, counties and social services organizations are struggling to get by without state aid.
He said the General Assembly could produce a budget along the lines of that framework, they could simply continue the impasse or they could work on a few sort of new plan he said would have to pass in 11 days.
Gov. Tom Wolf is calling for a return to the good ol’ days, or at least to the deal-brokering mood in Harrisburg a few weeks ago. “The Republicans have been unable to muster the votes they need to transform this agreed-upon framework into a real budget”. He asked the Legislature to “please, please get this done”.
In addition to the school property tax rebates, the money would provide an increase of $350 million, or 6 percent, for public school operations and instruction.
That framework called for raising the state sales tax from 6 percent to 7.25 percent, along with changes to the state’s pension system and sale of wine and liquor.
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Lawmakers in Harrisburg are expected to vote on the bill later Monday.
