By: Charles Thompson, Penn Live
Updated: October 31, 2017
Closing out Pennsylvania’s 2017-18 state budget proved to be really difficult in Pennsylvania’s current era of divided government.
We’ll soon find out what living with the solution will be like.
Gov. Tom Wolf on Monday signed into law the major components of a $2.3 billion revenue package that carries with it the tools to balance the $32.0 billion general fund budget.
The revenue package has three main prongs:
- It doubles down on the state’s investment in the commercial gambling market, with new expectations of revenue from Internet-based games and a second string of casinos scattered around the Commonwealth.
- It authorizes borrowing up to $1.5 billion from the 1998 multi-state settlement with the nation’s major tobacco companies. This means a significant portion of Pennsylvania’s annual payment will be diverted for at least the next 20 years from the health and research programs it has traditionally supported.
- It sweeps one-time fund transfers totaling $500 million into the general fund.
To read more, go to http://www.pennlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2017/10/gambling_borrowing_are_in_as_p.html.
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