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WILKES-BARRE — Visiting a King’s College classroom Tuesday, Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. Mike Stack made two predictions: The state will have a budget soon and it won’t involve taxing college student room and board payments.
“I think by next week we’ll have a budget,” Stack told 28 students in Political Theory and American Government. “I think most people will say that it was a rocky start, we got it done, and we’re on the right track.”
Harrisburg failed to pass a budget since Gov. Tom Wolf vetoed the legislature’s proposal June 30 and the local impact has grown acute. Luzerne County narrowly averted a shutdown when the county council agreed to borrow $20 million after initially rejecting the idea. Councilman Harry Haas said he voted no to “send a message” to Gov. Wolf.
Hazleton Area School Board rejected a proposal to borrow $31 million, with several board members similarly saying they wanted to send Harrisburg a message by risking closing schools. Northwest Area School Board President Randy Tomasacci has said that district will close Feb. 2 if state money does not begin to flow.
King’s senior James Nixon asked if the protracted budget battle is apt to replay in future years. Stack said the system for negotiations has changed for the worse.
“In the past, the governor could negotiate with legislative leaders,” said Stack, a 14-year state senator from Philadelphia. The leadership could typically guarantee a compromise would get enough votes to pass. “We don’t have that anymore.”
Now, lawmakers may not only reject a deal, they may threaten to support someone else in the next election to replace the person who negotiated the compromise.
“People put their self interest ahead of the greater good,” Stack said.
While the deal being hammered out isn’t exactly what Wolf wanted, Stack said it provides more money for education. “We’ve got to invest in young people.”
Nixon’s roommate Alcides Mauricio noted a proposed sales tax expansion could require students to pay taxes on room and board. “How is that helping us?”
Stack said it doesn’t, that he’s against it and that “I doubt it will make it into the budget.”
Dressed in double-buckle shoes and sporting a blue gingham print kerchief in his vest pocket, Stack chatted first about his family’s three generations of political involvement, his failed runs for state senate and a seat on the Philadelphia City Council, and his unexpected success running for his current post.
He tossed out folksy advice from lessons along the way:
• Try to keep on good terms with everybody, even those with whom you disagree. “If you want someone to help you, don’t expect them to be a mind reader. Go up and ask them.” If they say no, “there’s always another day, you shouldn’t blow up a relationship.”
• Practice “restraint of pen and tongue.” If you feel a need to respond critically to someone, “Give it 24 hours.”
• Giving speeches in the legislature that air on PCN TV may help you make a point, but don’t expect a lot of praise. “Gov. Wolf says ‘I saw you on PCN’, then he says ‘you need to get a life,” Stack said, adding with a laugh “My wife says that, too.”
• “You meet the best people that you’ll ever meet and you meet the worst people. And sometimes you meet the best people at their worse,” he said of elected office.”It’s a crash course in human nature and I would not trade it for anything.”
The King’s College stop was part of a two-day sweep through the region, including a stay-over in Pittston, Stack’s spokesman Gary Tuma said.
Visits included a popcorn manufacturer and a dairy farm looking to expand in East Stroudsburg, the Gino J. Merli Veterans’ Center in Scranton, Junior Achievement of Northeastern Pennsylvania in Pittston and Children’s Service Center in Wilkes-Barre. After visiting King’s, Stack went to Montage Mountain and then to the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre International Airport before returning to Harrisburg.
“It was more of a listening and learning tour,” Tuma said, “finding out about ways the state could be helpful. There wasn’t necessarily a specific agenda.”