The Corbett administration’s third budget season may be its most difficult yet, according to Budget Secretary Charles Zogby. The 2012-13 Mid-Year Budget Briefing projects the state will end the current fiscal year $85-million dollars in the black, but $1.3-billion in mandatory cost drivers await in the new fiscal year. For instance: pension obligations ($511-million), Medical Assistance […]
A top Republican lawmaker in Harrisburg has revamped his plan to change the way Pennsylvania awards its electoral votes in presidential elections. Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R-Delaware/Chester) believes it should be done “proportionately,” instead of the current winner-take-all model. A co-sponsorship memo, circulating in the Senate, states that the new system would more accurately […]
A new report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation pegs the nation’s teen employment rate at 26%. Director of Economic Development & Integration Initiatives Patrice Cromwell tells Radio PA we haven’t seen numbers like this since the early 1950s. “Just in the last ten years, it’s dropped by close to 50%,” she explains. “Back in […]
The federal government is less than a month away from driving straight off the “fiscal cliff,” but U.S. Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) believes there’s still time to avoid it. “The great dangers of the fiscal cliff are the massive tax increases that are scheduled to go into effect on January 1st,” Toomey told reporters on […]
A lot has changed in the past 11-years, but roughly the same number of Pennsylvania firefighters is responding to calls in 2012 as in 2001. “In 2001 there were 18.2… and in 2012 it was 16.8, about 17, so a change in only one person. Statistically speaking, that’s not significant,” explains Jonathan Johnson, a senior […]
On this week’s Radio PA Roundtable, Matt Paul breaks down the sweeping recommendations of Pennsylvania’s Task Force on Child Protection. He’ll also be jointed by Radio PA Sports Director Rick Becker to look back at an unprecedented season of Penn State football, and learn how budget cuts are affecting the state’s nonprofit sector. Radio PA […]
Nearly 70% of the 800-nonprofit groups responding to the United Way of Pennsylvania’s budget survey report feeling the effects of state budget cuts in 2012, and some indicate the cuts have been going on for five years or more. Nearly half of the groups also report feeling the pinch from federal budget streams. At the […]
The field of Democrats seeking to unseat Governor Tom Corbett may get crowded by 2014, but for today there’s only one. John Hanger, a former Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Secretary under Governor Ed Rendell, is touring the state to kick off his gubernatorial bid. Hanger wants to reverse education budget cuts and tax natural gas […]
The latest prelude to legislative action on Pennsylvania’s public pension crisis came in the form of the Keystone Pension Report, a 19-page document released by the Governor’s Budget Office this week. It details what led to the $41-billion dollar unfunded liability problem, the consequences of inaction and possible solutions. If you do the math, each […]
The fiscal cliff is more than just a federal issue. The automatic spending cuts called for in federal sequestration could mean $60-million fewer federal dollars for Pennsylvania next year, and that’s just half of this so-called cliff. Without Congressional action, a variety of tax increases will also take effect as of January 1st, which could […]