Governor Tom Wolf issued his proposed $29.9 billion budget for 2015-16 recently with a focus on employment and education resolved through tax reform.

The tax section in particular will likely prove a challenge for the first-year governor to sell, as he proposes reducing pension capital and raising income and sales taxes to invest in property tax relief. Publications in Harrisburg and Pittsburg report very little legislative support for such a shift in the tax policy.

To pay for property tax cuts, Wolf wishes to raise income taxes from 3.07 percent to 3.7 percent and sales tax from 6 to 6.6 percent. Taxes on cigarettes will increase by $1 and other tobacco products would now also be taxed.

Meanwhile on education, Wolf calls for a massive $400 million increase over last year's education funding by taxing natural gas operations as other states have done.

The budget is the first phase of a four-year goal to increase pre-k-12 investment by $2 billion, citing successful, thriving students as a foundation for a similarly thriving commonwealth. Wolf wants the state's education funding to match or exceed that of local communities for the first time, and includes an additional $100 million for Pre-K Counts and $20 million for Head Start to supplement low-income children's education.

Additionally, Wolf wants funding reform for charter and cyber charter schools, specifically recommending annual audits of cyber charter schools and requiring they reimburse supporting school districts' funds collected but not spent on students.

Bethlehem Area School District Superintendent Dr. Joe Roy calls the education plan very positive, and while he would like to see the benefit – namely about $4.5 million more than last year for the district – he expects wrangling at the state level make the prospect dicey.

BASD Board President Michael Faccinetto is in favor of the proposed changes, especially the restoration of Accountability Block Grant funds and charter tuition reimbursements. "The legislature has been trying unsuccessfully to reform charter school spending and add more accountability. This is critical to the future success of PA's public school system. Local districts continue to cut and scale back programs to fund charter schools that increase and offer more than local districts can afford. Unfortunately partisan politics continues to interfere in this process."

But Faccinetto notes that in the days since its introduction, the budget has already experienced unwelcome changes. "One of my main concerns with the governor's proposals is the one year moratorium on Plan Con reimbursements. This was not initially proposed, but appeared last week in proposed legislation as part of the budget package," he said.

Roy shared Faccinetto's concern. "The Governor's education plans include many things favorable to Bethlehem," Roy said. "Adjusting funding to account for the increased cost of educating children in poverty and English as a Second Language learners and reimbursing districts for a percentage of cyber charter school tuition costs, to name a few.

"The challenge for us is not knowing until late in our process or possibly after the conclusion of our budget process, exactly how much state revenue we can count on."