Gov. Tom Corbett's first budget, a $27.15 billion spending plan, is signed on time

FROM PENNLIVE

With about 15 minutes to spare before the July 1 start of the new fiscal year, Gov. Tom Corbett put pen to paper and signed his name on the first state budget of his five-and-a-half-month-old administration. The plan calls for spending $27.15 billion in the 2011-12 fiscal year.

In a public signing ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda, Corbett, surrounded by smiling GOP lawmakers, enacted the budget and fulfilled his promise of getting a budget done on time, albeit with only minutes to spare.

"This evening I'm signing the first on-time budget in eight years," Corbett said triggering applause from lawmakers.

"It to me is a very important first step in redirecting, recovering and having our fiscal house in order. ... This is a budget that works for Pennsylvania."

The plan also meets or exceeds several of the priorities that he set out in his March budget proposal. It keeps spending below his $27.3 billion ceiling on spending. It includes no new broad-based taxes or tax increases. And it addresses what the Corbett administration termed a $4 billion deficit primarily through making deep cuts to education, welfare and economic development programs.

It also uses $50 million of the legislative reserves and $240 million from the state's excess revenues, which Senate Democrats expected to top $750 million by the time the year's last receipts are counted. And it doesn't rely on revenue from a tax on natural gas drillers, something he told lawmakers he would veto if it came to his desk.

The GOP-crafted plan passed the House and Senate but without a single Democratic vote in either chamber earlier this week.
Legislators hailed the achievement of an on-time budget, which was supported by all midstate Republican lawmakers on a string of party-line votes over the past week.

"We had a goal, and we accomplished it for the taxpayers of Pennsylvania," said House Majority Leader Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny, referring to the on-time, cost-reducing budget. "They deserved it."

Democrats felt no such pride.

In a debate Thursday on cuts in aid to public schools, Rep. Mike Sturla, D-Lancaster, challenged Republicans to tout this budget back in their hometowns.

"Own your cuts," Sturla scoffed. "Have a parade and say: 'I cut your school district and I'm proud of it. Good for me.'"

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2011/06/pa_gov_tom_corbetts_first_budg.html