Our Appropriations hearings focused on concerns with overspending and mismanagement in the current year’s budget. The House Appropriations Committee kicked off this year’s budget hearings by questioning administration officials about their actual funding needs for the upcoming 2020-21 fiscal year.
Earlier this month, Gov. Tom Wolf proposed a $36 billion budget, which represents a spending increase of more than $2 billion over the current year’s enacted budget. Nearly $1 billion of that increase is the result of the administration’s overspending in this year’s budget. This week, our committee met with officials from the departments of Revenue, Aging, State, Military and Veterans Affairs, Corrections, and Labor and Industry.
As a member of this committee, I had the opportunity to address testifiers during these hearings, specifically Independent Fiscal Office Director Matthew Knittel, on Monroe County property tax burdens, and Department of State Secretary Kathy Boockvar on voting privacy concerns.
You can view my full comments below!
Independent Fiscal Office Comments
Department of State Comments
Several major state agencies are on next week’s agenda, beginning with the Department of Environmental Protection at 10 a.m. Monday, Feb. 24. Other state agencies scheduled to appear include the departments of Conservation and Natural Resources, Transportation, Agriculture, Health, and Community and Economic Development. For a full schedule of these and other remaining hearings, or to watch live streams or archived video of the hearings, click here.
Additional information about the 2020-21 state budget proposal may be found here.