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Negotiations on budget to ramp up

Negotiations for next year’s state budget are expected to begin in earnest this week as local lawmakers join their colleagues in the Senate and House to come up with a spending plan.

The state budget is due by Friday.

The problem of deciding on how to best fill an estimated $2.2 billion dolllar deficit makes the task particularly daunting.

“The big trick is the revenue side,” state Rep. Garth Everett, R-Muncy, said.

Senate Republicans reportedly are considering the idea of borrowing from the state tobacco settlement fund for revenue, an idea that Everett and state Rep. Jeff Wheeland, R-Loyalsock, oppose.

“I’m not excited about that. I’m not in favor of things that just kick the can down the road,” Everett said. “What will we do next year to fill the gap? It’s not one of the solutions I would choose.”

Wheeland agreed.

“As far as tobacco settlement funds, I am opposed to that. That is like getting another credit card to pay your other credit card balance off,” he said. “Where does that get you down the line?”

Added Everett: “I don’t get to write the budget or revenue plan, but if that is in the package, will I vote, ‘No?’ Probably not.”

Wheeland and Everett each supported a bill passed in the House earlier this year that would expand gambling and lead to additional sources of revenue for the state.

“That is an opportunity,” Wheeland said. “But I am very concerned of the projected revenue that expanded gambling will produce.”

Everett said it doesn’t appear the Senate “is quite as enamored of gambling as is the House.”

State Sen. Gene Yaw, R-Loyalsock Township, said the Senate is unlikely to support expanded gambling measures.

Yaw ruled out the possibility of turning to a broad-based tax such as a hike of the sales or personal income taxes to raise revenues.

A severance tax on the oil and gas industry, he said, “is always out there.”

“We will probably have to have a tax based on production,” he said.

Otherwise, the budget will certainly have to bring with it some cuts in spending, he added.

“We really have to consider cuts,” Wheeland said. “I believe both sides are looking at cuts, but nobody wants less of the pie.”

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