Governor to call for special legislative session to change Act 72
Wants to force schools to accept Act 72 money
Friday, September 16, 2005
By Ed Blazina, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Gov. Ed Rendell will call today for a special session of the state Legislature to try to amend Act 72 and force school districts to accept money from slot machine parlors to reduce property taxes.
Spokeswoman Kate Philips confirmed yesterday that Rendell will call for the special session to push his effort to reduce school property taxes, which he identified earlier this week as his top priority, when the Legislature returns later this month.
Rendell pushed slot machine gambling through the Legislature last year, but in the spring, only about 20 percent of the state's 501 school districts agreed to accept gambling proceeds to reduce property taxes.
To force the issue, Rendell will ask lawmakers to consider changing Act 72 to require school districts to participate in the program.
That could be a politically charged issue since Republicans are expected to use Rendell's failure to convince school districts to join the program against him in next year's gubernatorial campaign.
Philips said the governor's office won't release details on the length of the special session until today.
Many school district officials cited two provisions of Act 72 as reasons for not participating. They were requirements that districts put any proposed tax increases higher than the rate of inflation up for voter referendums and that they increase their wage taxes by 0.1 percent to qualify for the slots money.
School districts said those provisions would take away local control of school operations.
Rendell said this week he would agree to eliminate the new wage tax requirement to make the slots money more attractive, but he wouldn't budge on requiring taxpayer approval for tax increases higher than the rate of inflation. Similar provisions for voter approval are common in many other states.
"Those are his goals for the special session," Philips said, referring to eliminating the wage tax increase and requiring participation.
Earlier in the day, state Sen. Sean Logan, D-Monroeville, sent a letter to Rendell asking for a special session to consider several other bills or proposals to reduce or eliminate property taxes. They include one from Logan that would substitute an increased and expanded sales tax for property taxes.
"Focus, focus, focus -- a special session is the only way to focus everyone's attention on this issue," Logan said.
The Legislature would be able to discuss those other proposals, Philips said, but studies by the governor's budget office have shown they wouldn't generate the necessary revenue to eliminate property taxes. As a result, Rendell would be unlikely to approve any of those other bills.
Governors have authority to convene special legislative sessions that focus exclusively on specified subjects. Last year, Rendell called for one to deal with funding for public transit, but it was never called.
Special sessions can be held simultaneously with regular sessions and primarily are a governor's way of saying he means business about an issue. Lawmakers, however, still have to abide by normal House and Senate rules, so the special session proclamation, by itself, doesn't necessarily speed the debate process.
Sometimes, special sessions go on for months. Other times, lawmakers show up, take roll call, then go home.
They are convened sparingly and used only to tackle problems whose solutions are considered critical to the state's well-being.
They also can be convened via petition of the Legislature, which is what happened in autumn 2002, the most recent special session.
That year, the session's topic was the state's property tax structure. Former Gov. Mark Schweiker, a Republican, said the goal was to find "a solution that will stem Pennsylvania's long-standing property tax problem once and for all."
But the goal wasn't achieved. Though more than 70 bills were introduced, not a single one was approved.
(Ed Blazina can be reached at eblazina@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1470.)
Source: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05259/572523.stm
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