Our weekly Tri-County B2B meeting at the Downtown O.I.P. in Lewistown had a very important visitor this week. In addition to our 15 regular’s, we had 15 visitors and Representative Adam Harris from the PA State Legislature!
We covered a lot of issues – including the upcoming budget release on March 8th which the new governor is going to have to address the 4B deficit. The problem is going to be where to cut what and how much.
He spoke about a whistle blower policy – protecting works from losing their jobs if the come forward with evidence of fraud or waste thoughtful the state. A need for the BIE – gaming enforcement group – to have more oversight and be under the Attorney General’s office.
One of the major pieces of legislation out right now at both the Senate and the House is for major law suit reform – to remove joint / several liability and eliminate people from going after the deepest pockets available – the Fair Share Act. This act will make you each party involved responsible for their % of damages.
In addition – the Supreme Court has restricted venue moving to only the place where the act took place instead of moving to a place statistically giving larger payouts. In addition – a move to limit the amounts in payouts for economic and punitive damages.
Another topic – the Sprinkler Mandate. A nationwide universal code that all new buildings require sprinklers. PA is moving to repeal that because of the rise in insurance costs and building costs that the mandate would incur – House Bill 377.
A question and answer session was opened up, and many questions from the floor were answered eloquently and openly by Mr. Harris – taking all bumps and bruises along the way.
One of the issues was the new governor’s pledge to not raise taxes. A question about a natural gas extraction tax was brought up, however the semantics of the governor’s pledge is an issue. Add to that the question of where does it go? We spoke about a need for economic development of distribution plants, pipelines, and facilities throughout PA, and striving to keep the natural gas drilled here for some use here as well.
Education is clearly a hot point. Of the state budget of 26B, 10B is education. Mifflin County clearly has upcoming issues – and questions were raised as to online schooling, the voucher program, and the increase of private and charter schools.
We discussed a need for continued economic development to entice businesses to locate and expand in PA. Green energy initiatives, tax credits for new hires, funds for training, infrastructure and private / public partnership developments, and hopefully high speed rail statewide.
Of course – the new federal budget will have a big impact on the state funding, which will then impact our state budget and where all the cuts will be made. To that end – Rob Postal from MCIDC talked about a need to adjust the prevailing wage limits and rates. The previous rate was set at any thing above 25k in the 70s! Rob made a suggestions to increase the limit to 100k and index it over the years for the bidding process.
All in all it was a great meeting – and Mr. Harris drew the largest crowd and the most vocal activity in many meetings for our group. He plans to be back with Mike Ryan from the SBDC on the 10th of March to touch on the new budget and plans to fight for what.
While the state may be broke – Mr. Harris seems to think things are moving forward in the state – and on the mend for the future.