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No Easy Solution for PA’s Pension Woes
Pension reform appears to be too big of an issue for the limited fall session, but it will be a priority for 2013. “The pension crisis that we have is the tapeworm to the budget, and it will continue to get worse and worse if we don’t do something about it,” Governor Tom Corbett said on Radio PA’s Ask the Governor program.
State pension obligations increased by a half-billion dollars in the current budget. “I think it’s another five or six hundred million dollars additional, next year, that we’re going to have to come up with,” Corbett says. The number is projected to top $4-billion dollars in 2016, and Corbett says it’s all money that cannot go to other areas of the budget.
With the state pension funds on an unsustainable path, the Corbett administration will continue to be in contact with state lawmakers through the fall and into the New Year. State Senate Republican Leader Dominic Pileggi (R-Delaware) calls pension reform one of the top two critical issues to be addressed early on in 2013. “We will continue to try and work through the fall so that we can finish our work in the first quarter of next year,” he says.
Policymakers are tasked not only with stopping the increase in pension costs, but with paying down $40-billion dollars in existing unfunded liabilities. There’s no silver bullet, but the Public Employee Retirement Commission is holding a series of hearings this fall to try to come up with a set of recommendations. The panel met last week, and already has additional hearings set for September 19th, October 3rd and October 16th.
A New Era of Penn State Football
The Penn State football team understands the position it’s in, and coach Bill O’Brien says the players know this season is about more than just football. “This is about helping a community, this is about bringing much more awareness to child abuse, this is about making sure that we help lead this university… just to be a part of leading this university through the next three or four years that will be a challenge.”
O’Brien believes it’s time to move the university forward, and Governor Tom Corbett agrees. “He has my 159% support,” Corbett said of O’Brien on Radio PA’s “Ask the Governor” program. Corbett went on to say that he’ll be there to assist O’Brien in any way he can – whether as governor, a trustee or a fan.
Media Day on Thursday also gave coach O’Brien the chance to publicly address Penn State’s uniform changes for the upcoming season. For the first time in the history of Penn State football, the players’ names will appear on the backs of their jerseys.
While stressing that he’s respectful of Penn State’s traditions, O’Brien said he wanted to give the players the recognition they deserve for going through tough times and sticking with the university. But O’Brien said the most important patch on the Penn State uniforms this fall will be the blue ribbon that will show support for the victims of child abuse.
The new uniforms will make their debut on September 1st when the Nittany Lions open their season against the Ohio University Bobcats at Beaver Stadium.
Governor Tom Corbett Addresses Public Perceptions in the Sandusky Case
Making perhaps his most extensive comments on the record to date, Governor Tom Corbett today addressed numerous issues involving the perception that he in any way delayed the Jerry Sandusky investigation for political reasons.
Sandusky is currently awaiting sentencing after being convicted on 45 counts of the sexual abuse of young boys. The former Penn State football defensive coordinator’s fall from grace has dominated the headlines for 10 months, including speculation that Tom Corbett’s run for governor in 2010 (while he was Attorney General) tempted him to delay the investigation until after the election.
Appearing on Radio PA’s Ask the Governor program, Corbett answered direct questions about the perceived controversy and the timeline of events, including his two stints as Attorney General of Pennsylvania (1995-97 and 2005-2011). The governor flatly denied allowing politics of any kind to interfere with his office’s prosecution of Sandusky, calling the notion “insulting.” The governor states that it took time to build the case, which started in 2008 and continued with the announcement of charges in November of 2011, but he says there were no politically-motivated delays during that process. Corbett says there were concerns about the first case of alleged abuse. “We believed that we did not have a case that we could get a conviction on,” referring to the first report to hit his desk. “And what we did is we kept digging and digging and digging.”
Upon taking the office of governor, Corbett handed the case off to newly-appointed Attorney General Linda Kelly, who would eventually announce the charges involving at least 10 victims last November.
Corbett says he was not given any indication of Sandusky’s illicit activities either during his first stint as AG, or when he took office again in 2005. Some have blamed the governor for the lack of a prosecution associated with two now-well known incidents involving Sandusky in 1998 and 2001, a time period when Tom Corbett was in private practice and not holding public office. Corbett addressed two such listener emails during his Ask the Governor appearance.
The governor bristles at the notion that he would have allowed children to be at risk over politics, pointing to his record as a prosecutor. “Nobody has, in my knowledge in state government, done more to protect the children of Pennsylvania in the last 20 years than I have,” Corbett said. The governor points to his successful online predators unit, a program that has served as a model for other states attempting to crack down on internet predators. The effort has resulted in hundreds of arrests and continues to this day.
Video clips of the governor’s comments will be available on PAMatters.com.
Jerry Sandusky is scheduled to be sentenced next month in Centre County.