According to The Times-Tribune Gov. Rendell has handed out 255 layoff notices this week with empoyees receiving their final pay on Friday.
The layoffs are fallout from a multibillion-dollar deficit that has prevented passage of a complete budget more than six weeks into the new fiscal year. In the meantime, the state government is running on a bare-bones budget approved last week that excludes funds for many social services, public schools and other vital programs.
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The $12.8 billion budget Rendell signed last week, five weeks late, includes $1.8 billion in federal stimulus money.
It ensures that paychecks will flow to tens of thousands of state employees and sustains programs that include state prisons and health care for the poor, disabled and elderly. But Rendell vetoed nearly $13 billion endorsed by Republicans for social services, school subsidies and more in an attempt to press GOP lawmakers into accepting a tax increase that would allow more than $28 billion in overall spending.
While it appears Rendell still wants to play politics everyday people who work for the state are the ones that suffer. Hopefully he can soon see the alternative the Republicans in the Senate are proposing instead of the huge tax increase that he says is our only option.
h/t Grassroots PA
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why dosen’ any medea or senitor cover the fact that the reason inmates got paid was to buy tobaco and treats from rendalls wifes company. kefee industries?
A phased-in tax on deep natural gas wells could go a long way in helping Pennsylvania achieve financial balance, so long as Fast Eddie doesn’t get his hands on all of the revenue. PA and NY are the only states lacking a tax on natural gas, unlike all of the other gas producing states. Phase it in so that it doesn’t hit the gas producers all at once, and so that it tracks anticipated increases in gas production over time.