The school year is less than a month old, but there are already two districts where teachers are on strike. There also are at least two more districts were teachers have indicated they’d walk out by mid-October. Teachers from Shamokin and Line Mountain Areas are out of the classroom. In both cases, the teachers’ unions are demanding more.
The PSEA negotiator at both school districts is Mark McDade, who makes over $100,000 per year. The situation was neatly summed up in a letter from the Line Mountain School Board:
“It is apparent, by the Association’s last proposal, that the Association has no desire to settle these negotiations . . . Based on McDade’s leadership of 5 other local Teachers’ Unions toward strikes, regardless of how much they are being offered, it is obvious they just want more!”
In Shamokin Area, the School Board offered teachers $9,000 in salary increases over the next three three school years. The Line Mountain School Board was even more generous. Some teachers there would have seen their salaries increase by over $17,000 by 2020. Higher salaries also mean higher pensions. A multi-billion dollar funding shortfall in the pension system means taxpayers all over the state will be picking up those costs.
Pennsylvania is one of only 13 states where teachers may hold students’ education hostage to extract a higher salary and better benefits than the taxpayers who are covering the tab. We also lead the nation in teachers’ strikes. It would appear we are on track to keep that title.
A woman brought a very limp duck into a veterinary surgeon. As she laid her pet on the table, the vet pulled out his stethoscope and listened to the bird’s chest.
After a moment or two, the vet shook his head and sadly said, “I’m sorry, your duck, Cuddles, has passed away.”
The distressed woman wailed, “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I am sure. Your duck is dead,” replied the vet..
“How can you be so sure?” she protested. “I mean you haven’t done any testing on him or anything. He might just be in a coma or something.”
The vet rolled his eyes, turned around and left the room. He returned a few minutes later with a black Labrador Retriever. As the duck’s owner looked on in amazement, the dog stood on his hind legs, put his front paws on the examination table and sniffed the duck from top to bottom. He then looked up at the vet with sad eyes and shook his head.
The vet patted the dog on the head and took it out of the room. A few minutes later he returned with a cat. The cat jumped on the table and also delicately sniffed the bird from head to foot. The cat sat back on its haunches, shook its head, meowed softly and strolled out of the room.
The vet looked at the woman and said, “I’m sorry, but as I said, this is most definitely, 100% certifiably, a dead duck.”
The vet turned to his computer terminal, hit a few keys and produced a bill, which he handed to the woman.
The duck’s owner, still in shock, took the bill. “$150!” she cried, “$150 just to tell me my duck is dead!”
The vet shrugged, “I’m sorry. If you had just taken my word for it, the bill would have been $20, but with the Lab Report and the Cat Scan, it’s now $150.
State Rep. Bill Adolph (R-165), Sept. 16, told the Springfield Republican Party that Gov. Tom Wolf has not budged on the state budget since March and he won’t either.
The Pennsylvania Legislature passed a $30.179 billion budget on June 30 which was a 3.6 increase over the previous year. Wolf vetoed it as it did not include the income and sales taxes that he was demanding.
Adolph said the leadership of the GOP-controlled legislature recently offered to increase education spending by $400 million — the increase in the passed budget was $100 million — if the Gov. Wolf agreed to pension reform and the privatization of our state-owned liquor stores.
Wolf turned it down flat.
Adolph said that this was the first budget in his memory that a governor rejected in toto. Gov. Rendell merely crossed out the items with which he disagreed while signing what he wanted.
Adolph said that while 93 of the 500 school districts in Pennsylvania would receive total property taxes eliminated, Springfield and Morton residents will find themselves with a cost increase of $60 million.
A bronze statue of Philadelphia-native Sgt. Wild Bill Guanrere, whose heroism was depicted in the Band of Brothers, will be unveiled Saturday, Sept. 19, at the Delaware County Veterans Memorial in Newtown Square, Pa. 19073.
The ceremony will run from noon to 2:30 p.m. according to spokeswoman Barbara Ann Zippi. The memorial is at 4599 West Chester Pike which is a few blocks east of Providence Road. The public is invited.
Apollo 16 was the next to last moon landing. Little, however, has been spoken of the crisis it faced and the horrific conditions which the crew had to endure. Astronauts John W. Young, Thomas K. Mattingly II and Charles M. Duke, Jr. were given potassium fortified citrus fruit drinks to avoid irregular heartbeats due to potassium deficiency. Unfortunately, this had an unconsidered side effect and there was no air flow to dissipate the aroma.
This was what was overheard by ground control: I have the farts again. I got ‘em again, Charlie. I mean, I haven’t eaten this much citrus fruit in twenty years! And I tell you one thing. In another twelve gosh darn* days, I ain’t never eating any more.
Think of the children, Governor, and stop playing politics.
The Pennsylvania Council of Children, Youth and Family Services has filed a lawsuit against Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf and the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services seeking to compel them to perform their duty to continue to fund the critical and essential services necessary to care for and protect the most vulnerable populations of this Commonwealth – abused, neglected and dependent children, their at-risk families and juvenile offenders.
The legal action, filed today, Sept. 15, with Commonwealth Court by Lamb McErlane, PC, seeks to ensure that child safety and community protection services are designated as being essential even during budget disputes. PCCYFS, which represents more than 100 private providers of child welfare and juvenile justice services in Pennsylvania, believes that children, youth and their families must be able to access needed and defined services without fear of delay or disruption, even in the absence of state budget decisions.
“Since July 1, PCCYFS has tried to work in a proactive and positive manner with the Wolf Administration to have the state’s child welfare and juvenile justice services designated as essential services to ensure that public dollars flow despite the current budget impasse,” said Bernadette Bianchi, Executive Director of PCCYFS. “Unfortunately the Governor’s Office has failed to acknowledge the Commonwealth’s responsibility to financially support funding for these mandated services. We wish we did not have to take this legal action, but it is necessary to ensure that children, who are entitled to these services, continue to have uninterrupted access to these crucial services.”
“In the vast majority of cases, these child welfare services – which include in-home supports, foster care, and residential placements – are court-ordered. Children requiring placement out-of-their own homes due to abuse or neglect need protection, but the Administration has nonetheless refused to classify these interventions as ‘essential’,” said attorney Joel L. Frank, legal counsel for PCCYFS.
“Juvenile offenders requiring rehabilitation to keep communities safe are also not included on this essential services list,” Frank said. “That the state receives federal money for many of these programs, but the Administration is refusing to make those existing federal funds, or the necessary state funds, available to counties to pay counties and service providers is frustrating, improper and violates a comprehensive federal and state statutory scheme enacted to protect and serve this specific population”.
“The state has a responsibility and a duty to fund these critical, essential programs,” said Alex Rahn, Wanner Associates and Government Affairs Consultant for PCCYFS. “The Administration’s failure to fund these programs – while at the same time claiming that child daycare subsidies are “essential” — is unacceptable and irresponsible public policy. This court action is designed to protect these vulnerable and at-risk populations. We will not stand by and allow the safety of children or our communities to be held hostage in this budget debate.”
Federal and state laws define the entitlements of children who have been abused or neglected. Services to ensure their ongoing safety, as well as the supports to be available to their families, are often also put into court orders. Many of these supports, including programs offered in the child’s home, foster family care and residential placement, are delivered through contracts between counties and private provider agencies. These services are clearly intended to be funded with designated public tax dollars.
Juvenile offenders who have been declared by the court to be in need of rehabilitation are another population of youth with entitlements to interventions. Those youth who present a threat to the safety of their community require placement interventions and are again primarily served through the private provider network. Although funding continues for some youth served in the State Youth Development Centers, services for youth presenting the same behaviors placed in private facilities are not.
Private agency staff are working every day to meet these legal and ethical expectations – many programs are staffed round the clock, seven days a week. The additional pressures of worrying about how to pay for the care, supervision, food and transportation for these children and youth by exhausting agency resources, taking out loans and staff layoffs are an unfair consequence to the agencies committed to this work. These services are absolutely essential to the health, safety, and protection of Pennsylvania’s children, are certainly required by federal and state laws and must be funded. PCCYFS is confident the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania will agree.
It appears that newspaper editorial departments across the state are offering their opinion on the state budget. Let me set the record straight — the legislature met its obligation to pass a balanced budget by the constitutionally required deadline.
The budget sent to Gov. Wolf on June 3 included $1 billion more for spending than the previous budget. Gov. Wolf chose to veto a budget that was balanced, did not raise taxes, and provided increased education funding. Notably, two-thirds of the line items were funded at or above the amount that the governor requested.
Gov. Wolf had the power to use what is called a line-item veto — he could have approved approximately 270 items, and he could have vetoed the rest. Instead he has left organizations in our communities scrambling to stay afloat because he insists on a tax-and-spend budget that exacerbates the problem that I continue to call attention to — Harrisburg does not have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem.
Gov. Wolf claimed during his political campaign that he turned around his family business, which meant reining in costs and reducing waste. Unfortunately, we haven’t seen him show a willingness to perform his private sector business magic on Pennsylvania.
Our state is financially distressed and needs a turnaround governor, not a tax-and-spend governor.
I take my role as a state senator seriously. I serve on the Senate Appropriations Committee. I sat through 33 hearings on the budget covering 80 hours.
I have considerable private-sector business experience. The various companies that I own, along with thousands of other businesses in Pennsylvania, continue to withhold weekly payroll taxes from employee paychecks and send those taxes to Harrisburg weekly along with other taxes the companies pay, so the cash flow to Harrisburg continues.
Let me be crystal clear: I will not be voting for any additional tax increases. I will continue to beat on the table demanding accountability for the taxes everyone already pays.
I would ask editorial writers to do everyone a favor and stop blaming the legislature and point the blame to Gov. Wolf.
