PA Budget Secretary takes your questions about the proposed state budget

Tuesday, 29 March 2011 12:21

PA Budget Secretary takes your questions about the proposed state budget

Written by Scott LaMar, Director of Radio Smart Talk

On Wednesday's Radio Smart Talk, we'll welcome your questions about Governor Tom Corbett's proposed state budget for Pennsylvania's Budget Secretary Charles Zogby.

Govenor Corbett tapped Zogby, a former Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Education, to head up the Office of the Budget, which is responsible for preparing the Governor’s annual state budget, and implementing it once passed by the General Assembly and signed by the Governor.

Zogby served as Education Secretary under Governors Tom Ridge and Mark Schweiker back in the early 2000s. He also served several years at Governor Ridge's policy director.

We'll welcome any questions you have for Secretary Zogby in the first half of the show. Then, in the second half, we'll welcome your feedback about what you hear, as we're joined by witf Capitol Bureau Chief Scott Detrow.

LISTEN TO PROGRAM:

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# Josh 2011-03-29 13:09

I would like to know what became of Corbett's plan to reroute the $2 billion PA gets every year in tobacco settlement money, intended for healthcare spending. I know he was being sued but have not heard any outcome.

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# Jim 2011-03-29 16:40

This apparently belongs in the land of lost causes, but please ask Mr. Zogby to justify not imposing a severance tax on Marcellus Shale gas. All of the arguments that I've heard against the tax are specious. We are the only state with significant Marcellus resources that isn't imposing a tax. This isn't an infant industry - it's been around for 150 years and mostly run by multinational companies. Why are we leaving this revenue source on the table??

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# Josh 2011-03-29 18:19

Oh I definitely second Jim's question! It really does defy logic.

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# Mike 2011-03-30 09:04

The comment from the administration is that the education cuts are basically a problem replacing stimulus monies with a caveat about a poor economy. In today's Daily Item, Shikellamy SD says the cuts will result in furloughing over 60 teachers while Milton SD is mulling closing an elementary school. That's beyond the extra dollars of stimulus. Are they over reacting or has the administration underestimated the impact of the cuts?

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# Vince 2011-03-30 09:21

You want the "long view" on Marcellus shale gas drilling, Mr. Secretary? Why not consider all long-term impacts of this nascent industry, including the environmental effects on areas where drilling is occurring. That is why an extraction tax is needed. Do you really think it will chase drillers to other states? If so, consider this -- has a 55% tax on gambling companies chased them elsewhere? Of course not. The only negative impact of such a tax: high-ranking Republicans might have to buy their own Super Bowl tickets next year.

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# robin 2011-03-30 09:22

Sir, You live in Pennsylvania - the lessons of indescriminate raping the land is recent memory - the arguments you make were made back then, "Lest We Forget' sir!

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# Jeremy 2011-03-30 09:25

Given the ever increasing production from the Marcellus Shale industry why is it that DEP and DCNR are not being increased in proportion to the increase in shale production? The industry itself has proven it cannot be trusted to police itself.

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# David Duff 2011-03-30 09:25

how come as mr sturla put if a person makes 36k they pay more in taxes than 70% of all corporations. in light of GE who make 14 billion & paid 0.00 in taxes & got 3 billion back that a -60% tax rate as per john stewart, 2/3 of all corporation effectly pay tax.do you find such to be nothing short of treasonous

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# Lisa 2011-03-30 09:31

Good Lord this is just an advertisement for the Republican party! Why is the Republican outrage that the listener expressed against the Rendell administration not being expressed against the Bush administration. The observation that the administration left us with the biggest debt in history applies equally to both! I'm sick of irresponsible government! Tax the Marcellus shale drillers already!

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# Lisa 2011-03-30 09:34

Wrong answer to the question about why should someone lose their property because they can't pay school taxes! Anyone can request an exemption from their local school board if they cannot afford their property taxes. No one advertises this, but it is available to everyone.

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# Vince 2011-03-30 09:36

I apologize for my previous question -- it's obvious this guy has his head buried so deeply in the sand that he, like his boss, is out of touch with reality and doesn't know the true answer. The Secretary has no concept of the struggles faced by environmental interests or schools in Pennsylvania. He's just touting the party line. Lame.

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# John Gouveia 2011-03-30 09:41

Why should counties, municipalities, school board and other local govenments be limited to real estate taxes and sales taxes? Why shouldn't they be allowed income taxes?

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# Lisa 2011-03-30 09:41

Well, he is right that Marcellus shale = job creation. Unfortunately, it will be job creation in hazardous cleanup.

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# Robert Colgan 2011-03-30 09:42

I was going to call in to speak to Zogby, but I'm glad I didn't.

I'd simply have called him a liar.

He talked out of both sides of his mouth and his anus at the same time------quite a feat.

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# Robert Colgan 2011-03-30 09:44

His explanations angered me:
saying that "putting education back into the hands of the parents" as rationale for removing money from pre-school programs (when all data supports early childhood assistance as a very sound investment !) means that the parents must now pay themselves for that schooling . . . and many can't afford to do it.
Parents and the elderly will pay much more in property taxes.

This guy [censored]ed me off.
All his glib answers were the type of PolSpeak doubletalk I have learned to completely distrust.

Everyone also knows that Corbett is a shill for the gas companies----who gave him almost a million dollars in campaign funding-----and in return, he promised them all the freedom they need, including freedom from paying taxes. Lies.

AARRGGGHHHHHHH !

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# Lori 2011-03-30 09:56

I agree with the caller who asked why we would give away a commodity so freely, if it is a means of generating capital, why are we in such a hurry to prostitute ourselves and our environment? Is it to make Corbet's books look better? Waiting and doing it smartly seems more prudent.

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# Lori 2011-03-30 10:05

Amen to the caller standing up for teachers. Zogby needs to spend time in a classroom before he can talk about the same lame argument of merit pay. Most teachers go into the profession because they genuinely care about our kids. They deal with human beings of free will and they cannot control their performance completely. What teacher will want to teach children with developmental delays if they will be penalized for it? Furthermore, how does cutting money for education help? It only means kids get less attention because class sizes must be increased. I doubt this will solve anything... but at least we are looking out for our criminals and big business! We need to evaluate our priorites in PA.

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# Josh 2011-03-30 10:10

Well at least we know know for sure what kind of administration this is. Good luck all.

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# Al 2011-03-30 10:17

The argument is that applying an severance tax would drive energy companies away to other states. Where would they go? Every other state applies an severance tax.

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# Tom Zug 2011-03-30 10:17

I agree with the last caller that the Corbit administration is being short sighted. The majority of the jobs created by the gas industry are short term jobs related to the drilling. Most of those jobs go to out of state drilling contractors and their out of state workers. Sure ther are lots of jobs driving trucks and fixing the roads and environmental damage but ther all go away once the the drilling is done. The few long term jobs in collecting the gas will never make up for the losses.

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# Nicole 2011-03-30 10:17

Our state is already losing approximately $250B in annual revenue due to the Governor's decision to not tax natural gas drillers - a tax that in some form is in place in every other major gas-producing state. The gas is here in large quantities both in the Marcellus and Utica shales and the gas is in close proximity to both the New England and Mid-Atlantic markets. . plus the industry has already invested billions in its efforts to extract our gas to be here long-term. Please share your quantifiable research that the Corbett administration must have conducted (not just sound bites from the industry) that suggests that this tax would be detrimental to our economy and to the welfare of our citizens?

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# Lee 2011-03-30 10:18

Why not de-fund the Delaware River Basin Commission which is usurping Pennsylvania's power in the Delaware Basin? New York and the federal government are not paying their share of the DRBC costs, yet still voting to over ride Pennsylvania laws on such things as permitting gas drilling and promise still more land use controls to over ride more State laws.

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# Ralph 2011-03-30 10:19

I agree there needs to be a lot of "shared pain" across the board to bring spending in line with economy-depressed revenues. However, I don't see that "sharing" in Corrections. Why aren't methods such as home-monitored detention being used to cut the cost of incarceration? How is Corrections "sharing the pain"?

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# Jack Gibble 2011-03-30 14:23

Mr. Zogby did not understand education the last time he was around and is comments today indicates that he still does not. His support for Marcellus Shale only confirms that $$ for elections talks bigger while morality goes begging.

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# E Peabody 2011-03-31 04:35

As a parent, a public school volunteer, a school district employee and a school board member I can say without hesitation that there is significant waste in public education. Many districts have too many administrators. We have 500 School district administrations when 100 is plenty. If we consolidated administrations we would save over $1.2 billion that could be redirected to classrooms.

Millions are spent each year paying for a vast collection of memberships (for teachers and administrators) in "professional organizations" that are essentially lobbyists.

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# Gary 2011-03-31 09:08

The budget secretary yesterday made a comment that there is no linkage between teacher effectiveness and student outcome so why support their further education and therefore teachers should be considered for merit pay...the secretary fails to understand that he reports this as a direct causal effect...the only way a causal effect could possibly be explained is to control for other moderating variables such as SES, parental educational background, community violence, base rate of student achievement, MH or D&A disorders, etc...only then, once controlled for and ruling out these confounding variables can one begin to consider a possible direct cause effect of teacher effectiveness and student outcome...what frustrates me the most is the general public may not understand these scientific principles and the secretary misinforms the public with political rhetoric...

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# Andrew 2011-03-31 13:15

I think it is past the time when Pennsylvania needs to get control of education cost.One teacher in Hershey claimed that she and her collegaues could make more in the private sector. Really? Teachers work about 184 days including in service days. The pension formula is 2.5% time the number of years employed times the average of the last 3 years salary.

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# Suzanne 2011-04-01 08:42

It is unfortunate that Mr. Kirby did not have his facts straight last night about Penn State. He stated -
*Dr. Spanier said that students were going to have to bear the brunt of the cuts... when in fact we know that Dr. Spanier said exactly the opposite. Employees at PSU have not gotten pay raises in the last 2 of the three years to help mitigate this. Also, layoffs and program cuts will also take place so that this does NOT happen to students.
I felt his attitude was cavalier and irresponsible. Let's deal with the truth of things so that we can reasonably figure out solutions. Political game-playing and distortions of the truth help no one!

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# Shirley 2011-04-03 19:16

I definitely see the benefit of balancing the budget. There are many places that budgets can be cut in both small and great areas. What is the governor himself doing to make cuts that will affect himself, Congress, and legislature? They should be leading us in showing that we are all in it together to balance the budget, not calling on OTHERS to make cuts without being willing or open about making personal cuts.

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# Lisa Plastino 2011-04-07 17:10

Unfortunately with the proposed budget cuts in education the ones that are paying the most are the students. Specifically the ones in the low income areas. The Governor should resume the building of the additional prisons because without education we could quite possibly have to support their incarceration.

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# Lisa 2011-04-08 17:38

I live in Washington County "Shale central". There have been numerous reports of friends, neighbors etc taking cellphone and digital camera pictures of trucks dumping waste water into rivers, streams etc. Gov. Corbet have the large campaign contributions made you feel so in dept to these companies that you don't care about our environment?

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