Lawmakers see own funds dwindle as Pennsylvania’s state budget fight continues

Republicans are offering the governor a trade: They’re proposing getting rid of pensions for future state employees in exchange for a bump in pubic school funding that Wolf wants.

Mr. Corman, R-Centre, noted that the governor and legislative leaders were to meet today and said that would determine whether the leaders call the General Assembly back into session next week. Wolf has balked at that, as have Democratic lawmakers, and it is staunchly opposed by public employee labor unions. “It’s a plan that saves the Commonwealth $17.3 billion”.

“We also would like to see an actuarial analysis”, said spokesman Jeffrey Sheridan, “so that we can see how the savings that they say are included in their plan stack up against the governor’s”. Wolf, however, has said that the traditional pension benefit is a more efficient way to ensure retirement security for public workers.

Gov. Tom Wolf and top Republican lawmakers are resuming talks in the Capitol amid a seven-week-old budget stalemate that is cutting off money to crucial safety-net services around Pennsylvania.

Meanwhile, in a subsequent email message to rank-and-file House Republicans on Wednesday, House Majority Leader Dave Reed, R-Indiana, wrote that “liquor privatization must also be agreed to” by Wolf.

School districts and small nonprofits that find themselves having to take out loans while waiting on a state budget may get some help with the borrowing costs that they incur.

“It’s an alternative proposal, one that falls far, far short of anything that we would accept”, Mr. Corman said.

Senator Corman says their pension proposal would save $12 billion.