HARRISBURG - Sen. John Blake's new spot as minority chairman of the Senate Finance Committee puts him at the center of debate over issues involving distressed cities like Scranton.
Midway through his first term, Mr. Blake, D-22, Archbald, is the Democratic caucus point-man on a committee with jurisdiction over tax and tax credit legislation and proposals to privatize the Pennsylvania Lottery and curb escalating public pension costs. Sen. Michael Brubaker, R-36, Ephrata, remains as the finance committee chairman with the power under the Republican Senate majority to advance bills and set a hearing agenda.
Mr. Blake can use his chairman platform to advocate for proposals he's interested in to help fiscally distressed cities diversify their shrinking tax bases while providing for property tax cuts. He plans to reintroduce legislation to give county officials the option to levy a 1 percent county sales tax to provide property tax relief and help offset municipal operating costs. This bill went to the finance committee last session.
Mr. Blake said he hopes to pick up new allies for this legislation, including some GOP senators who represent distressed cities.
"My bill is a starting point," he said.
While Gov. Tom Corbett and Republican Senate leaders have said they want to tackle escalating public pension costs for state government and school district employees, Mr. Blake said it's important to focus also on rescuing the several thousand municipal pension systems.
"The pension reform that I believe is more worthy of the attention of the governor and General Assembly is the inefficiency of having over 3,000 municipal pension systems statewide," he said. "The small scale of many of these multiple pension systems cannot secure the level of contributions or the investment returns that are availed members in larger pension systems."
Mr. Blake said consolidating some of the smaller systems or making them part of a larger state system should be explored by the finance committee.
The Senate Democratic caucus has declared that providing more help to distressed cities will be one of its state budget priorities this year. The caucus wants to capitalize on the election pickup of three seats in the Senate, thus narrowing the GOP margin of control to 27-23.
Mr. Blake said he plans to continue working on legislation to provide more protection for taxpayers and tighter state oversight over municipal debt undertakings. The issue was highlighted during hearings last fall by the Senate Local Government Committee on Harrisburg's incinerator debt.
Contact the writer: rswift@timesshamrock.com