Rendell signs state budget bill

A large portion of the spending increase will go for education.
HARRISBURG (AP) -- Gov. Ed Rendell signed a $23 billion spending plan Sunday that substantially boosts state aid to public schools without increasing taxes.
The plan easily won lawmakers' approval, four days past the deadline for passing a state budget.
The Senate passed the budget bill unanimously, while the House vote was 193-8, after a marathon session that began Saturday evening. It increases total spending by 4.3 percent.
Over two days, the Legislature passed a pair of bills that will legalize slot-machine gambling to finance $1 billion a year in property-tax reductions for homeowners across the state. Rendell had insisted on both measures before signing a budget.
The official signing came at 7:40 a.m. in the governor's reception room of the Capitol. Rendell's budget secretary, Michael Masch, joked that it was a "revolutionary budget," a reference to July Fourth. The new fiscal year began Thursday.
"The big difference [this year] is that there's no need to raise revenues, and when there's no need to raise revenues, it always makes it a little easier," Rendell said before signing the bill.
Offset by increases
Much of the new spending is offset by the increases in taxes on income, telephone usage and cigarettes included in a December compromise to complete the budget for the fiscal year that ended Wednesday. The state also ended the last fiscal year with a $637 million surplus, according to the Department of Revenue.
"This year's budget deliberations were not quite as exciting as last year's, and that's a very good thing," said Rep. David Argall, R-Schuylkill, after the House vote.
Education programs accounted for a substantial portion of the spending increase, including a $200 million education block grant initiative to help school districts improve the math and reading scores of struggling pupils. Districts could spend the money in a variety of ways sanctioned by the Education Department, such as starting or expanding full-day kindergarten and preschool programs or reducing class sizes in kindergarten through third grade.
The amount is more than the $175 million Rendell and lawmakers earmarked for the block grants in December, but less than the $250 million that Rendell requested in his budget address to the Legislature in February.
Basic education subsidies for the state's 501 school districts will increase by 3.6 percent to about $4.4 million, with each district guaranteed a funding boost of at least 2 percent. Districts could receive larger state aid increases based on several factors.
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