Gov. Tom Wolf last night vetoed a $30.2 billion state budget plan.  Senator Costa strongly opposed the House and Senate Republican budget proposal saying it fails our public schools, denies much need school property tax relief, and adds to the state’s deficit woes.

Senator Jay Costa:  It’s bad news for Pennsylvania residents and Allegheny County residents.  What we have is legislation, a budget that’s being ran through by republicans without any input or consultation from Governor Wolf, any input from democrats as well.  It also does not address some of the key issues that people want us to talk about.  Folks want us to make investments in education.  They want us to look to the Marcellus Shale community to be reasonable and responsible partners in that regard.  A reasonable and responsible solution to the education problems we have.  That’s not taking place here.  But more importantly, we’re not doing anything at all to touch property tax relief.  At the end of the day, voters have said to us, and when you look at what people want us to do in Pennsylvania, they want us to make investments in education.  They want us to look to the education community to support that.  They want us to look to make property tax relief a reality in Pennsylvania, and they also want us to look at other issues like human service programming and things along those lines.  That is not taking place here.  This is a budget that’s ran through, that all it does is exacerbate the unfunded structural deficit that we have in Pennsylvania.  It goes from $2.3 to $2 billion in 16/17.  So this is a bill that continues to do the policies and practices of Governor Corbett that the republicans want to continue to do, and we think that’s inappropriate.  My hope is that the governor takes the time to review the bill and determine that it’s not the appropriate bill for Pennsylvania, largely because he has not been involved in the process.  But also because as I said earlier, they have not made the investments in education.  A measly $8 million being invested in education with no help from the Marcellus Shale community.  No property tax relief.  We think that’s inappropriate.  My hope is that the governor reviews the bill and very quickly vetoes it, so we can all come back to the table here on Wednesday afternoon and begin a process to put real measures together that are sincere.  To Governor Wolf’s credit, he’s taken significant steps in making significant concessions to try to resolve some of the issues that are important to the republicans and important to the democrats, and he’s worked hard to be able to do that.  Those concessions have been rejected for this very partisan bill that’s going to be harmful to Pennsylvania.