Governor’s budget to push for aid for schools, college debt

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Gov. Tom Wolf is preparing to release his sixth budget proposal Tuesday, amid strengthening tax collections and expectations that the Democrat will push for more money for schools and to clean up environmental hazards in aging school buildings.

Wolf also plans to emphasize the need to act on student loan debt for students graduating from Pennsylvania’s state-owned university system.

“We can’t afford to have students in Pennsylvania graduating thinking about how they’re going to pay off their debt when we want them to think about how they’re going to make a life, a career, a family,” Wolf said last week.

Wolf will deliver his budget speech to a joint session of the House and Senate starting at 11:30 a.m. Both chambers are controlled by Republicans, and those GOP majorities have generally blocked Wolf’s most expansive proposals since he took office in 2015.

Many details of Wolf’s new budget plan remain under wraps, although the governor’s office in recent days has rolled out some features.

Spending in the blueprint for the 2020-21 fiscal year that starts July 1 could exceed $35 billion. Wolf has said his plan would hold the line on taxes to fund the state’s day-to-day operations.

One new element he will propose to lawmakers is expanding a bond-funded redevelopment grant program by $1 billion and making the money available for lead and asbestos cleanups in schools.

It is fueled by growing concerns over asbestos and lead poisoning in Scranton and Philadelphia. The proposal, however, runs into a yearslong trend in the Republican-controlled Legislature of lowering the program’s borrowing cap.

Wolf also is renewing his campaign to win approval of a tax on Marcellus Shale natural gas production to underwrite a $4.5 billion “Restore Pennsylvania” infrastructure program that includes money for controlling floodwaters, building rural broadband and cleaning up natural disasters and blight.

The proposal never saw a vote after he first floated it a year ago.