By Christen Smith
Staff Reporter
Capitolwire
HARRISBURG (June 30) — The Republican-controlled Legislature delivered a fourth on-time budget Monday, but — at literally the eleventh hour — Gov. Tom Corbett said he wouldn’t sign the bill.
The governor blamed the delay on the General Assembly’s inability to pass “meaningful” pension reform – almost one week after he issued an ultimatum demanding a legislative solution to the state’s pension system that has accumulated a $50 billion unfunded liability that is expected to grow to $65 billion in the next few years.
“Leadership is not always about the popular choices, it’s about difficult choices,” Corbett said in a press release Monday. “The budget I received tonight makes significant investments in our common priorities of education, jobs and human services. It does not address all the difficult choices that still need to be made.”
Both House and Senate leadership stood by the budget, despite its lack of pension reform.
“This is the budget that 26 of 27 Republican Senators and 108 of 111 Republican House members believed was the best course of action,” said Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware, via email. “It is the governor’s right to decide if he agrees with them or disagrees with them.”
“Obviously this is a decision that the governor has made,” said Steve Miskin, spokesman for House Majority Leader Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny, after news broke Monday. “We got him an on-time, no-tax-increase budget. It’s a good budget.”
Meanwhile, the Senate passed a watered-down pension reform bill Monday that would move the state’s elected officials to a defined contribution plan, netting an estimated $690 million in savings over the next 38 years.
House members on Monday afternoon described the bill as a good start, but said it didn’t go nearly far enough to create a sustainable pension system moving forward.
The House plan that could do just that, however, could come in the form of amendment sometime this week.
Reps. Mike Tobash, R-Schuylkill, and Warren Kampf, R-Chester, told Capitol reporters Monday afternoon they plan to offer a new omnibus amendment to Kampf’s legislation – House Bill 1353 – that is primarily Tobash’s hybrid pension proposal with a few changes suggested by members of the House GOP Caucus.
“We’ve continued to talk to our colleagues, take their input in House, and we’ve made some changes,” said Kampf about what Tobash called “meaningful” changes, changes that both lawmakers said would hopefully be offered in the near future on the House floor.
To read more about that proposal, click here.
The governor ended his statement with a cryptic message that leaves the future of the budget, including a potential veto, unclear.
“I will continue to work with the legislature toward meaningful pension reform,” Corbett said. “I am withholding signing the budget passed by the General Assembly while I deliberate its impact on the people of Pennsylvania.”
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Finally after 4 years of B.S. concerning the state lottery and liquor store privatization the governor decides to take up a true crisis – pension reform?!
This is way too little and way too late. It should have been his first priority, not his last.