HARRISBURG - Tuesday, February 5, 2013 – AFTPA Executive Vice President Rosemary Boland and Scranton Federation of Teachers Vice President Matthew Loftus were in Harrisburg to hear Gov. Corbett’s annual budget address, during which he unveiled a $28.4 billion budget for fiscal year 2013-14 that tied new funding for schools to cutting current school employees' pensions and privatizing state liquor stores.
The governor’s budget:
• Cuts pensions for current and future school and state employees and jeopardizes the funding structure of retirees currently drawing pensions from the teachers’ and state pension pensions.
• Privatizes the state’s profitable Wine & Spirit stores, costing the state at least $500 million a year in tax revenues and 5,000 family-sustaining jobs.
• Continues the state’s disinvestment in education, extending $1 billion education budget cuts into a third year.
• Ties $90 million in new education funding to decimating teacher and public employee defined-benefit pensions.
• Maintains level funding for special education for the sixth consecutive year.
• Maintains level funding for career and technical education.
• Leaves the state Accountability Block Grant at 40% of what it was when he came into office.
• Maintains level funding for colleges and universities for the second year – following cuts of 10% for community colleges and 20% for universities in 2011.
• Ties $250,000/year in new, restricted “Passport to Learning Block Grants” to privatizing the state’s profitable Wine and Spirit stores.
The budget includes major new business tax breaks, according to the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center. Corbett has proposed phasing out the capital stock and franchise tax and phasing out corporate net income tax rate and other breaks, which will cost the state treasury hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue each year.
Pennsylvania continues to rank 44th in the country in its investment in public education and 46th in the country in its investment in higher education, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
“For the third year, the governor is moving Pennsylvania in the wrong direction,” Boland said. “He is giving corporations long-term tax breaks while offering miniscule increases in basic education funding, paid for by cutting pension benefits for current school and state employees. The small increases in funding in early childhood education, basic education and health and human services don’t come close to repairing the damage from $2.5 billion in education funding cuts over the past two years.”
“We are appalled that the governor would use funding for children and schools as pawns in an effort to achieve his goal of eliminating teacher and public employee pensions and privatizing even more public assets,” said Matt Loftus, a teacher and Scranton Federation of Teachers vice president. “AFTPA members should contact their state representatives and senators to let them know that Gov. Corbett’s budget priorities do not reflect our budget priorities. Business tax breaks can’t continue to come at the expense of children, seniors, students and middle-class families.”
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
- View Budget Secretary Zogby's Pension PowerPoint, which was shared with the media on Tuesday.
- Read Rosemary Boland’s budget statements on education funding and cutting public employee pensions.
- Read Ted Kirsch’s letter to the editor in the Feb. 7, 2013, Philadelphia Inquirer: No sale on school funding.
- Philadelphia Inquirer: Corbett’s budget would raise spending but requires pension limits
- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Corbett pension proposal draws concerns
- Reuters: Analysis: PA pension 'fix' could add new woes