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For Immediate Release
March 4, 2009
 

Smucker Supports Spending Cuts To Solve Budget Crisis, But Says Cut
 Proposed For Thaddeus Stevens College Of Technology Is Wrong

With the state revenue shortfall at $1.3 billion and mounting, state Senator Lloyd Smucker supports additional spending cuts in the state budget to deal with the situation without raising taxes.

But he does not agree with one substantial cut that Governor Rendell made in his budget proposal -- $2.2 million slashed from the Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology.

"This school takes disadvantaged individuals, trains them for high-skill, high-paying positions, and achieves a better than 95% placement rate.  Over 90% of the graduates stay in Pennsylvania, so it fits with the ‘brain gain’ goal.  There is an impressive list of businesses started by graduates of Thaddeus Stevens.  This is the kind of success story that Pennsylvania should be investing more in during tough times, not cutting substantially," Smucker said.

"A cut of the dimension the Governor wants to inflict likely means the loss of a building, a number of important support services displaced, and a smaller student population.  None of those outcomes are helpful to the school, the community, or the Commonwealth," he noted.

"When I challenged the state Education Secretary to justify the cut, all he could say was that was the way it has traditionally been done.  No policy reason.  No financial or program analysis.  No finding of any deficiency.  No apparent concern over the consequences that a more than 20% reduction in funding might have.  Just a mindless budget game," Smucker pointed out.

"In prior years, the legislature would put this money back in.  This year, no one knows where money will come from for program restorations.  Even though federal stimulus dollars are now being targeted to other higher education institutions, Thaddeus Stevens is just not on the Administration’s priority list," he stated.

Smucker remarked that the Secretary of Labor and Industry gave the school high marks for performance, an important affirmation of its value in job training and job preparation.

"I expect to be supporting a lot of spending cuts in deciding the new state budget, but I will not accept Rendell’s misguided cut for Thaddeus Stevens," Smucker concluded.

Contact:

David Atkinson
(717) 787-6535