State, legislators debate Corbett budget

Gov. Tom Corbett’s proposed cuts to education have garnered opposition from legislators on… Gov. Tom Corbett’s proposed cuts to education have garnered opposition from legislators on both sides of the aisle and people across the state.

The cuts, part of the Republican governor’s first budget, amount to almost $900 million in education spending and would reduce Pitt’s $185 million appropriation by more than half, to $80.2 million. State legislators will hold hearings on the budget throughout this month and April before setting a date to vote on it.

Penn State, Temple and Lincoln universities — which also receive money from the state as an incentive to keep tuition lower for in-state students — and the 14 state-run universities in Pennsylvania would have their appropriations cut by half as well.

University officials across the state have not said how much of an effect these cuts could have on tuition. Chancellor Mark Nordenberg at a press conference last week said that the University would try to keep increases within “manageable levels.”

During a state Senate hearing Wednesday, a number of legislators said that Corbett’s proposed cuts would go too far. Also, the majority of Pennsylvanians said that they would oppose the education funding cuts, according to a poll released yesterday by Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa.

After chairing the Appropriations Committee hearing, State Sen. Jake Corman, R-Centre, said legislators would try to roll back some of the proposed cuts, although Pitt’s appropriation would likely still take a hit this year.

“The past few days have shown that there is a lot of support for higher education. We’re going to do our best to minimize the cuts that were proposed,” he said.

State Sen. Jim Ferlo, D-Allegheny, who is the committee’s minority vice chair, took a stronger stance against the cuts. He and many other Democrats have opposed the appropriation cuts since their introduction last week. After the hearing, Ferlo released a statement on his website and through the state Democratic party.

“His pledge of no new taxes is disingenuous because the cuts in higher education and to local school districts will mean higher tuition costs and higher property taxes,” he said in the statement.

University officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Corbett called the $27.3 billion, 1,100-page proposal a “reality-based budget” when he proposed it last Tuesday. It includes no tax increases — in line with his campaign promises — and cuts state spending to 2008 levels.

The recently elected governor wanted the higher education cuts to hold universities accountable for tuition increases.

He said that these hearings are the beginning of the budget process, and Corbett has been open to changes in his budget. Corman said that Corbett might have even done students a favor by proposing such deep cuts because it raised their profile in the public dialogue.

“This elevated higher education to a lot higher level,” he said. “[There are] a lot more people talking about higher education now than they would otherwise.”

G. Terry Madonna, the director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall, who helped conduct the poll, said that higher education spending has become one of the largest issues in the state.

The potential budget cut “does affect people more directly, but I don’t think it’s pushed off the table the debate over Marcellus Shale,” he said. “It’s not the dominant issue the way it was before.”

In the poll, about two-thirds of respondents opposed the higher education cuts in some way, and 28 percent favored them.

Respondents favored proposed cuts to local school districts less; 19 percent of them supported those cuts, whereas 68 percent opposed them.

Madonna said that he has heard of some support for higher education in the legislature, but even if the legislature gets money back to the universities, it will still be a difficult process.

“They want to get some funding back, say $500 million,” he said about the proposed $900 million cuts. “Where are they going to come up with $500 million?”