Governor Tom Wolf will make his budget address late this morning in Harrisburg, and is expected to ask for more than a billion dollars more in spending than in the current fiscal year. He has said that he will not ask for new taxes or seek increases in current tax rates for operating expenses, but he will call again for a Marcellus Shale severance tax, with the funds used for his “Restore Pennsylvania” program. That initiative proposes spending for floodwater control, rural broadband, emergency management, and blight.
Wolf will also ask the legislature for an increase in Pennsylvania’s minimum wage. He will also seek funding level increases for public education and for more money for the State System of Higher Education.
On Indiana In the Morning last month, State Representative Jim Struzzi said he expects a “hard year, budget-wise”.
In a rarity for first-term legislators, both Struzzi and Senator Joe Pittman are members of their respective chambers’ appropriations committees, and will be key figures in the budget hearings.
