Senator Elder Vogel issued the following statement on the proposed $34.1 billion General Fund budget for Fiscal Year 2019-20 that Governor Tom Wolf unveiled before a joint session of the General Assembly on Tuesday.
“Obviously, it was good to hear the Governor say he was not proposing any new taxes, however that raises the concern about how are you going to have the increase in the budget that he is proposing without raising taxes.
“There is some new funding for agriculture that is nice for animal diseases and the spotted lanternfly, which is now becoming a huge problem here in Pennsylvania. There is some more workforce development money for agriculture people to find people to work on their farms. We do have an ever-changing economy in Pennsylvania with our agricultural workforce.
“It is very disconcerting that he has cut about $30 million from our state parks. Our state parks and tourism are two of our biggest things depending on the day of the week. Our state parks are one of our gems in Pennsylvania. We will have to get to the bottom of that through the Appropriations process. I think workforce development and things like that are great to talk about, but we have to figure out how to pay for these programs. We will take it from here and go through the Appropriations process and we will see what happens.”
Contact: Charlie O’Neill (717) 787-3076 coneill@pasen.gov