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<p>LARKSVILLE &#8212; Gov. Tom Wolf stood in front of a newly renovated and expanded State Street Elementary School and conceded the Wyoming Valley West School District has not seen &#8212; and is not likely to see &#8212; several million dollars in state reimbursement for the project, thanks largely to the budget impasse in Harrisburg.</p><p>His main message Thursday was as it has been &#8212; the claim that his proposal, unlike the Republican counter-offer &#8212; funds public education while curbing property taxes and balancing the budget without gimmicks.</p><p>But he dealt with a few moments of unplanned political theater, glad-handing state Rep. Aaron Kaufer, a Republican, and posing for photos with Luzerne County Taxpayers Association President Charles Urban, who dubbed Wolf&#8217;s budget a &#8220;scam.&#8221;</p><p>Posing with Wolf for a picture, Urban held up a sign calling for support of the property-tax-eliminating House Bill 72, Republican legislation Wolf doesn&#8217;t support.</p><p>Smart phones captured the moment. &#8220;If this shows up on the Republican website,&#8221; Wolf said with a smile as he pointed to Kaufer, &#8220;I blame you.&#8221;</p><p>Wolf arrived in the traditional black SUV. Stepping from the vehicle he shook hands with media representatives, school district officials and Urban, who immediately urged him to support &#8220;complete elimination of property taxes.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s great to be here,&#8221; the first-year governor told the crowd. Then, gesturing to Urban, he added, &#8220;and I&#8217;m going to get to your point in just a minute.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;We have a serious set of choices facing us, and Democracy is about choices,&#8221; he said, referring to the budget standoff created when the legislators rejected his proposal and he vetoed theirs.</p><p>&#8220;You know how Yogi Berra talked about how when you come to a fork in the road take it? That&#8217;s a good laugh line. The problem is, this isn&#8217;t funny,&#8221; Wolf said.</p><p>Wolf repeated his list of four things he feels must be done:</p><p>&#8226; Invest in education;</p><p>&#8226; Levy a severance tax on natural gas extraction to help increase money for early education;</p><p>&#8226; Provide property tax relief for homeowners;</p><p>&#8226; Balance the budget &#8220;without gimmicks.&#8221;</p><p>Citing one-time funding sources in previous budgets and &#8220;smoke and mirror&#8221; tricks like deferring payments due to school districts to balance past budgets, Wolf compared the process of both his predecessor Tom Corbett and the current Republican proposal &#8220;cheating at solitaire.&#8221;</p><p>Wolf blamed such budgeting for the repeated downgrades in the state&#8217;s credit rating &#8212; lowered five times in the four years. He noted the downgrades resulted in the state paying $139 million a year in extra interest on the current $17 billion in borrowed money.</p><p>&#8220;That&#8217;s $139 million we&#8217;re not putting into schools, That&#8217;s $139 million you&#8217;re not getting for tax relief, that&#8217;s $139 million we&#8217;re not using to build roads and bridges.&#8221;</p><p>Wolf dismissed Republican accusations that he is the one refusing to compromise,&#8221; saying he has changed his severance tax proposal three times in response to Republican concerns, as well as offered compromises on other aspects of his proposal.</p><p>Republicans were quick to respond &#8212; so quick they had emailed a retort to media before Wolf had finished his remarks at State Street. It was his third stop in a stump speech blitzkrieg running from Slatington to East Stroudsburg to Larksville in four hours &#8212; roughly a 300-mile round trip from Harrisburg to Harrisburg.</p><p>&#8220;Just weeks after vetoing the largest state budget in Pennsylvania history, it looks like Tom Wolf is headed back to the campaign trail,&#8221; PA GOP Communications Director Megan Sweeney wrote. &#8220;Tom Wolf vetoed a historic state investment in our schools because it was paid for without raising taxes.</p><p>&#8220;Tom Wolf&#8217;s tax hikes would cost residents of the Wyoming Valley West School District more than $2.2 million in new taxes like a diaper and day care tax. It&#8217;s no wonder that Governor Wolf&#8217;s budget was unanimously rejected in the State House. It&#8217;s time for Tom Wolf to step off of the campaign trail and join with Republicans in supporting a fiscally responsible budget.&#8221;</p><p>Republicans put forth a proposal that would increase income and sales taxes, but they insist it&#8217;s a zero-sum game because every dollar would go toward property tax reduction. Wolf&#8217;s plan calls for increases so similar to the GOP that Keystone Research Center Executive Director recently called it a &#8220;once in a generation chance at compromise.&#8221;</p><p>But Wolf reserves some of the money to fix the states structural deficit.</p><p>The GOP didn&#8217;t need a long-distance denouncement. Kaufer, of Kingston, showed up as Wolf&#8217;s Q &amp; A session wound done &#8212; in fact, the governor had just been asked if he had met with Kaufer. The representative from the 120th district recently told the Times Leader he had been talking with Wolf about property tax elimination.</p><p>Wolf said he has met Kaufer, then &#8212; seeing him approach &#8212; quipped &#8220;ask me that question again.&#8221; The two shook hands and chatted amicably. But when they separated Kaufer returned to one of his key points in the budget debate: Pension reform.</p><p>Kaufer has repeatedly argued that so much state money goes toward ballooning pension fund payments for school teachers that it makes no sense to discuss balancing the budget without addressing that issue at the same time. He noted the state is paying more than $500 million this year into the pension fund, and that it will rapidly top $700 million in coming years.</p><p>Asked why the two issues couldn&#8217;t be separated for now in order to pass a state budget and get money flowing to school districts and other agencies that rely on it, Kaufer said &#8220;it has to be addressed. We can&#8217;t keep pushing it down the road.&#8221;</p><p>One of Wolf&#8217;s last acts &#8212; before all the picture posing with school district officials &#8212; was a one-on-one with Urban, who stressed he had voted for the Democrat. He urged Wolf to back the complete elimination of property taxes.</p><p>Wolf said his concern is that such a move would prevent school district residents from raising more money even if they wanted to.</p><p>But, he added &#8220;I&#8217;m persuaded by other people&#8217;s arguments. I&#8217;m open.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Gov. Tom Wolf visits State Street Elementary Center in Larksville as part of his &#8220;Schools That Teach&#8221; tour Thursday. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/web1_govwolf01.jpg</photo0><caption0>Gov. Tom Wolf visits State Street Elementary Center in Larksville as part of his &#8220;Schools That Teach&#8221; tour Thursday. </caption0><photoCredit0>Pete G. Wilcox | Times Leader </photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Mark Guydish</p><p>mguydish@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Gov. Wolf pushes state budget proposal at Larksville forum