CRESSONA — State Secretary of the Budget Randy Albright said Wednesday that Pennsylvanians must decide what kind of future they want, and that the best choice means they will have to pay more for it.
“We are at a crossroads,” Albright told about 40 local business leaders at the Schuylkill Chamber of Commerce luncheon at Alvernia University-Schuylkill Center. “We can’t continue to go down this same path. Find either new revenue or spending cuts.”
Albright said Pennsylvanians can choose a brighter future over the status quo but must be willing to spend more money on, and pay higher taxes for, education, workforce training, human services and other important government functions.
“We think that some form of broad-based tax increase is appropriate,” suggesting an increase in the state income tax to 3.4 percent, along with a 6.5 percent extraction tax on natural gas from the Marcellus Shale deposits, he said.
Republicans who control both houses of the General Assembly have rejected both of those proposals.
Albright, 59, of East Pennsboro Township, Cumberland County, has served as budget secretary since January 2015, when Gov. Tom Wolf took office.
He spoke in the wake of the 2015-16 budget standoff in Harrisburg, when Wolf allowed a $30.031 billion spending plan to become law without his signature, and the unveiling of the governor’s proposed $32.7 billion budget for 2016-17.
The new plan is a realistic and progressive option for Pennsylvania, according to Albright.
Schuylkill County schools should receive $2.9 million more under Wolf’s 2016-17 plan, including $2.2 million more for basic education and $700,000 more for special education, he said. That is part of an increase in school funding, along with a change in the distribution of that money, that is a cornerstone of Wolf’s proposal and one of his top priorities, he said.
“Zip code does define the quality of education you’re going to receive,” Albright said. “Taking the right steps for the way we fund school districts ... is part of the answer.”
He said mergers of school districts, of which Pennsylvania has 500, are controversial and difficult to achieve even if the result would save taxpayers money.
“That’s not going to happen overnight,” Albright said of reduction of the number of school districts. However, there could be more savings achieved by changing school health care and transportation, he said.
Other positive aspects to the new proposal include $2 million more for vocational rehabilitation, $12 million more for investments, $11.6 million more for industry partnerships, $34 million to combat the epidemic of heroin and opioid use, $3.5 million to protect farmers and food suppliers, and savings of more than $10 million from the merger of the Department of Corrections and the Board of Probation and Parole, according to Albright.
The results should include more home- and community-based health care, restoration of cuts to human services programs, targeting of long-term investment savings and more alternatives to incarceration, he said.
According to Albright, the Wolf administration is addressing pension cost concerns by proposing a hybrid pension plan for new state employees. He said state courts have ruled that it is unconstitutional to change existing pension plans, so Pennsylvania must at some time address the multibillion-dollar unfunded pension debt before it can put its financial house in order.
“We can’t change the contractual obligation we make,” Albright said.