The budget plan for the 2012-13 fiscal year that begins Sunday would increase spending by about 1.5 percent.
View full sizeAn artist's rendering of the proposed Allentown hockey arena and the surrounding neighborhood.A Pennsylvania budget plan savaged by Democrats as taking from the poor to give to the rich but defended by Republicans as appropriate and responsive to taxpayers and businesses won final legislative approval Friday before it went to Gov. Tom Corbett to become law for the next 12 months.
Still awaiting approval, however, is a fiscal code amendment that would stop Allentown from collecting suburban earned income taxes to build a hockey arena, said state Sen. Pat Browne, R-Lehigh/Monroe/Northampton.
Browne said the amendment is expected to be approved by both the House and the Senate some time today, before Gov. Tom Corbett officially signs the budget.
The Senator hopes the removal of the earned income taxes component from the hockey arena funding will render moot three lawsuits that have been filed against the Neighborhood Improvement Zone law.
Check back at lehighvalleylive.com/allentown later for further coverage once the fiscal code amendment is approved.
Corbett won overwhelming approval from the state Senate for his biggest legislative priority: Tax breaks designed to entice the construction of an integrated petrochemical industry in Pennsylvania.
The 32-17 vote in the state Senate on the Republican-penned $27.7 billion plan will likely help Corbett keep his pledge for the second year in a row to sign an on-time budget, although it went to his desk with barely 30 hours to spare.
Three Democrats voted with majority Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa, who nonetheless called the elimination of a Depression-era cash benefit for poor adults who can’t work “mean-spirited.”
The 43-6 vote on Corbett’s tax-credit plan sent the bill to the House for approval as Republican legislative leaders worked feverishly to write legislation and line up votes to tie down their end-of-session pact with Corbett.
But without enough House support cemented for Corbett’s education agenda, lawmakers appeared certain to continue working into Saturday, the last day of the fiscal year when they traditionally depart Harrisburg for a two-month break.
The budget plan for the 2012-13 fiscal year that begins Sunday would increase spending by about 1.5 percent, largely for debt, pensions and health care for the poor, as well as to help fill a shortfall in the almost-finished fiscal year.
It would cut business taxes by hundreds of millions of dollars, deposit about $350 million to $400 million into reserves and slash hundreds of millions of dollars from services for the poor, homeless, troubled and disabled.
Aid for public schools and universities would remain flat — a handful of public schools nearing financial collapse would see a little extra money — after absorbing more than $1 billion in cuts in the current fiscal year.
“This is the right budget for our residents and our job creators at this time,” said Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware, during floor comments. “It moves Pennsylvania in the right direction.”
Democrats criticized what they view as tax giveaways to businesses at a time when the state is being stingy with its poor, schools and transportation network.
“It caters to business, not small business, but super-rich, foreign-owned companies to the detriment of our people,” said Sen. Michael Stack, D-Philadelphia. “It has cuts that will force local property taxes increases and detrimentally affect programs and services for years.”
Democrats won a month delay in the elimination of the General Assistance cash benefit until Aug. 1 so that the Department of Public Welfare can notify tens of thousands of recipients that they’ll lose it.