STATE BUDGET

Libraries, preschools have eyes on debate

By Mike Joseph

Pre-kindergarten educator Brenda Finney had all the players in front of her: A half-dozen 3-and 4-year-olds from low-income or otherwise needy families.

They sat on the floor around a thickly padded mat that a kid could tumble on — or use to taste the language of shapes, numbers and colors.

“Kylie, can you jump on the number 2?” Finney asked.

Kylie stood up and looked at the mat, a checkerboard of primary colors. Each of its 12 squares contained a smaller shape of a circle, square, triangle or star in a different color, and each shape in turn contained a different numeral.

“It’s on a square,” Finney said, referring to the number 2. And then, after a moment, she added: “It’s on a green square.”

Kylie checked out the options and hopped from the edge of the mat to the correct square inside it — and the Cen-Clear Child Services center near Philipsburg chalked up another learning moment, one of many in a five-hour day.

But such moments could be reduced by half in the fierce tug of war between Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell and Senate

Republicans over the size of the new state budget.

Rendell’s version — with the help of a 16 percent increase in personal income tax — would provide enough money to preserve or even add to the 11,000 or so low-income children across the state served by the early childhood program for the needy.

The Senate’s version would reduce program funding by half, also halving the number of children served (300) in Centre and Clearfield counties. But the Senate budget would not increase the income tax or any other.

“Education is the one thing that stops the ignorance, stops the violence and stops everything else,” said Wendy Whitesell, director of the Bennett Family Center pre-kindergarten program in the State College area. “This is a big cut for a lot of these programs that have started to change things. It’s a good value for your dollar.”

Library may lose funds

At the Schlow Centre Region Library, director Betsy Allen said the Rendell budget would reduce her annual operating budget of about $2 million by $13,800. But the Senate budget would cut $300,000 from Schlow.

“It’s quite a change from one proposal to the other — it’s quite a big amount,” Allen said. “It’s taking away all of these programs at the state levels that we are relying on.”

Such impacts would hit public libraries across the state at a time when more and more people are going to them because they can no longer afford to buy magazine subscriptions, Internet services and books, Allen said.

Clearfield County resident Becky Sees, an 18-year-old mechanical engineering major at Notre Dame University, sat in Schlow one day last week and counted herself among those who can’t afford to buy books for leisure reading.

“Whenever I have free time, instead of watching TV or playing video games, I just pick up a book,” she said.

Sen. Jake Corman, R-Benner Township, chairman of the key Senate Appropriations Committee and the father of three young children, acknowledged that the pre-kindergarten program — and library funding and other programs as well — are important.

But he put greater importance in “the long-term stability of our finances” and said “my first priority is to make sure Pennsylvania’s budget will stand up” in the years ahead.

“It’s a very difficult balancing act,” Corman said. “Libraries and early childhood education are good programs. But as much as we hate the budget cuts, you just can’t raise our taxes.”

Leaders against increase

The power struggle between Rendell and the Senate heads for a climax in the days ahead because the new fiscal year starts July 1. The state budget is supposed to be in place by then, though it hasn’t made that deadline yet during the Rendell administration.

Corman projects next year’s state revenues at $24.5 billion. Another $2.7 billion from federal stimulus money will make $27.2 billion available, against a $28.5 billion Rendell budget, after subtracting $500 million in additional Rendell cuts. Rendell’s proposed personal income tax increase would raise about $1.5 billion, seemingly enough to fill the hole.

But whatever compromising may be accomplished in the days ahead, Corman said, it will not include that income tax increase.

“I don’t think the governor’s going to have any support for it,” Corman said. “The House Democrats are going to decide. The sooner they get the message to the governor that there’s no support for it, the sooner we can move off it and negotiate something else.”

The House Democrats (with a 104-99 majority) are in the middle of the tug of war. They’re the strands of the rope being pulled from both directions.

Rendell, a lame-duck governor, will be term-limited out of office at the end of next year. House Democrats, many of whom owe their election to the 2005 pay raise scandal, are up for election again in 2010 and are more sensitive to public sentiment about an income tax increase from 3.07 percent to 3.57 percent.

Rep. Scott Conklin, D-Rush Township, for example, who benefited from Rendell campaign support in 2006, said Thursday he isn’t backing the governor’s call for an income tax increase, arguing that enough money can be found elsewhere to avoid it.

“At this point, I’m not supporting it (the tax increase),” Conklin said. He said he hopes this year’s budget crisis “will give us a chance to look at the things we hadn’t looked at in past years and re-evaluate them.”

State Rep. Mike Hanna, D-Lock Haven, also said he does not support the income tax increase.

It’s much easier for House Republicans to oppose the Rendell tax increase, and virtually all of them do.

Rep. Kerry Benninghoff, R-Bellefonte, said the House, despite Democratic control, couldn’t pass the income tax increase today. “I think there’s a significant portion of Democrats in the western side of the state who are opposed to it,” he said.

But Benninghoff said he feared that so-called WAM (walking-around money) — the General Assembly’s version of congressional earmarks — might persuade some key lawmakers to support the Rendell tax increase.

“There are some who feel that we are funding things that just shouldn’t be funded anymore,” Benninghoff said.

In his district, which includes part of State College, College Township and most of Penns Valley, opposition to the tax increase is strong, Benninghoff said.

“People are vehemently opposed to it and can’t believe we are even entertaining it,” he said.

‘People are hurting today’

The grass roots of that opposition isn’t hard to find. At Bald Eagle State Park in Howard last week, Joe and Betty Lyter, of Reedsville, returned with their camper as they have twice a year for the past nine years.

They like the fresh air, the birdsong and, Joe Lyter said, “all the people around who are nice people — nice to talk to.” They also like the inexpensive vacation, though park fees have shot up lately and could go up more depending on how badly the current budget battle wounds the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

The DCNR general fund budget for this fiscal year is about $120 million. Rendell’s proposed DCNR budget for the year ahead is about $113 million, and the Senate budget proposal for DCNR is $94 million.

Would Joe Lyter, a retired machinist, prefer an income tax increase to keep the state parks open and the fees low so he can keep coming back? No.

“People are hurting today, and they can’t afford more,” Lyter said. If state park fees get too expensive, he said, “then I wouldn’t come — I’d look for some ground somewhere to put my camper permanently.”

Mike Joseph can be reached at 235-3910.