 Good afternoon everyone thank you so much for joining us for Governor Wolff's first-ever Facebook Town Hall yesterday. We asked you to submit questions for the governor and so today he's here with us live answering your questions on Facebook. Governor welcome. Thank you Meg, it's good to be here. Yes well let's get started. We're going to talk about a topic that a lot of people have been talking about and that's property taxes. Ed from Quaker Town has our first question. Why not eliminate property taxes? What changes would you like to see to House Bill Senate Bill 76 in order to sign it into law? Of course that's the property tax independence act so why not eliminate property taxes? Yeah that's a good question. I'm trying to to reduce property taxes dramatically. I heard throughout the campaign that people want property tax relief but I also heard that that people want to invest in education that we need to have schools that that can actually teach and that where teachers and educators have the resources they need to teach. So House Bill 76 Senate Bill 76 while it does a nice job in in reducing the property taxes dramatically it doesn't make I think the investment in the public goods and in education specifically that I think we need to to make. So I've tried to do this in a way that creates 3.8 billion dollars of tax relief property tax relief in a way that we can afford and in a way that still allows us to make the investments we need to make in a great future. And if your plan passes and reduces school taxes as you'd like to see what measures are there to then prevent these districts from raising property taxes once again? Yeah what you don't want to have happen is that we do all this work to reduce the taxes and then local school boards down the road increase the the tax. What I've done and what I'm proposing in my budget is to take the reserve which right now if your reserves are between it depends on the school district between 8 and 12 percent of your annual budget if it's below that then you can raise property taxes without a referendum. In my budget I propose reducing that cap from 8 to 12 percent down to 4 percent and that would keep the overwhelming most almost all the school districts in Pennsylvania from from being able to raise property taxes unless there's a referendum and the assent of the voters to do that. We have to make sure and my goal is to make sure that this is dollar for dollar property tax reduction that that 3.8 billion dollars in property tax reduction that I want to see actually goes to property tax reduction and that's that's important. So this is my plan my proposal for doing that obviously open to any suggestions as to how we can improve that I want to make sure that's dollar for dollar property tax relief. All right and into our next big talking point regarding your budget is public education. Lisa from State College tells a story about her son who attended cyber school and asks what are your plans for cyber charter schools? Well my plans are to try to make it apparently she was very happy with the education her son received there and I want to make sure that that all cyber charter schools are held to the appropriate accountability so that they provide their students with as good in education. So I want accountability in our charter school program including bricks and mortar but also cyber charter schools and I also want to make sure that the taxpayers are paying an appropriate amount I think we need to make sure that we're not overpaying. So I propose since we have intermediate units public education many of our intermediate units are already providing public option on cyber education that and using the same software that that actually we know what that costs and I'm proposing to reimburse cyber private cyber charter schools that amount plus ten percent as a cushion that should save us a hundred and sixty million dollars so what I'm proposing again is accountability to make sure that every child gets a good education in a cyber charter school and also proposing a formula for reimbursement that should protect the taxpayer from from paying too much. Roger from McClure and this is a direct quote upon moving back to Pennsylvania two years ago I noticed a serious lack in my local school district with no marching bands and no instrumental instruction my question is will some of your education funding go to improve the music fine arts programs within our schools. Well first of all welcome back to Pennsylvania but yes the the idea of the good basic education system is science technology engineering and math but also the arts and and a good education has to include that and and part of the reason that schools some schools have eliminated those programs is because they don't have the funds. My investment in education is premised on the idea that that all students in Pennsylvania will get a good education a full education they won't be robbed of some of the elements of that educational program including music and art and so while I focus a lot on the reduction of property taxes I've also focused a lot on the investment side we need to invest more in public education I've proposed in my budget to do that and one of the goals is to make sure that every student has access to the programs that he correctly identified as is unfortunately being eliminated from too many schools. Okay let's move on to higher education. C. Elam from Belfont says how does your administration plan to expand financial support for commonwealth public and state related higher education? Well in my budget I simply propose giving money restoring the cuts that prior administration had made to higher education and I'm doing that over a two-year process two-year cycle so that over the next this year and next year 100% of that those cuts will be restored and and that's still my goal so that 50% of that restoration is in this budget and the second 50% will be in the next I hope in the next budget. Okay let's shift gears medical marijuana big talking point these days Teresa from Lackawanna County what is your stance on legalizing it? Well as I said throughout the campaign I'm for legalization of medical marijuana and I'm working with two senators one Republican one Democrat right now to support them in their efforts to bring a legalized medical marijuana bill into B so I have strongly supported that I think doctors really ought to be in charge of prescribing medication they think their patients need most and so we give doctors the the ability to prescribe much stronger drugs than that and and and I think we should do no less in this case give them the ability to to prescribe the medication they think will best help their patients. Okay sales tax Linda from Dallas Town and the Republican Party of Pennsylvania want to know more about the sales tax component of your budget plans so can you explain why you're changing the sales tax at all in Pennsylvania and then how does that relate to property taxes? Well I'm trying to to create we're addressing a number of deficits I think we have an education deficit we're not investing a much in as much as we should but we also have a structural budget deficit just in general we're looking to consume more public goods and we're willing to pay for that's the structural budget deficit that means no matter how much your economy grows revenues just aren't going to keep up with what you need so we have to bridge that that gap I'm trying to do a number of things at once here invest in education reduce property taxes reduce the corporate income tax and one way we can can do that is to change the personal income tax and the sales tax which I'm proposing to to do my proposal on the sales tax calls for raising the rate by six tenth one percent from six to six point six percent and to keep that as modest as that by broadening the base and making sure we're in many ways bringing the the sales tax from the 1950s which is when it was first established to the 21st century where a lot of new products and services are being sold and consumed that weren't in the 1950s the economy is different now and I think that tax should be brought up to speed if we broaden the base it means a much more moderate increase is necessary to fund the things we need to fund and and having to do with property taxes at the same time well and as I said that that allows us to produce the huge reduction in property taxes that that I'm calling for a 50% on average reduction in property taxes for funding public education I think we're allowed I'm going to be allowed to do that with this modest increase in the sales tax talk about your budget Denise from Bucks County how will you build a strong collaborative relationship with legislators that will then enable you to move your agenda forward well that's that's an important point I'm a new governor so I haven't been through the budget process before but I understand that that I need to to build consensus and I'm basing my goal here of the building consensus and the means to that end on the idea that the legislators Republican and Democrat heard the same thing I did from the voters of Pennsylvania they want property tax relief my budget has that in a big way and I'm assuming that they'll agree with me that that's important I heard from my constituents as I'm sure they heard from theirs that we need to invest in education I've heard from many people over the years that we need to reduce the corporate income tax all these things are in my budget and so the the fundamental area of agreement I think is that we all want those same things and and so we can start from that point and there'll be areas of disagreement but I'm hoping that that I can build support simply by the elements that I've put into this budget health care art from Erie wants to know is your new Medicaid expansion plan really an expansion and when does it take effect it really is an expansion and and the idea is is to do what we've done before we've had Medicaid since the 1960s I think in Pennsylvania and so we're familiar with it the people who are Medicaid clients understand it and what we're talking about here is simply expanding that and extending that to an extra 600,000 Pennsylvanians it's not creating a new bureaucracy it's not creating new layers of services just doing what we've always done the goal is to have the first phase of that in place by early June and the fully implemented by the early fall late September early October the goal is to have a clearly understood clearly defined system that is as efficient as possible for the taxpayers of Pennsylvania that is also something that the clients can use. On to the gas drilling and energy industry and that would like to know I'd like to know if you have any plans for moving our state forward with renewable energy and starting to move away from fracking. Well I think I want to impose a severance tax and I want to do that because I think the industry the gas industry could be not only a source of revenue for the state for education for example but a source of new jobs but I also see that the severance tax as the as a place that we can raise money for building a bridge to a sustainable energy future. We used to have a pretty robust system of tax incentives of grants that would allow people encourage people to put photovoltaic cells on their house to build and use wind farms to generate electricity. We need to do more of that kind of thing so in my budget I have a 675 million dollar bond issue that would be serviced from that severance tax about 50 to 60 million dollars a year that would provide the funding to build that bridge that she's talking about. And Linda would like to know will counties still receive funds from gas companies if the new tax is enacted? That's a really important point the severance tax replaces the impact fee but embedded in my severance tax as a proposal to make sure that that localities where drilling takes place and they're heavily affected by it continue to get the fees they got before. So I've actually targeted the impact fee amount at 225 million dollars which is I think the high point that was reached in the impact fee which is two or so years ago to make sure that that they are guaranteed that 225 million dollars moving forward in my severance but that's the first cut in my severance tax. Minimum wage Chanel from Philadelphia wants to know where you stand on raising the minimum wage she says it's been long overdue and will tremendously help those working an hourly wage and putting themselves through school like me. Yeah it will help individual workers but you know it's it's also going to be a good thing for the economy there are a lot of ideas out there about the minimum wage right now it's a seven dollars and 25 cents I'm proposing to raise it to ten dollars and ten cents an hour right now somebody making the minimum wage and working full-time it makes about fifteen thousand dollars a year if you have two children you can't live on that that's that's that's below the poverty level. I don't think as I said my budget address that someone working full-time in Pennsylvania should be living in poverty. So I think from her point of view and from the point of view of people making the minimum wage this this is a big deal and over 80% of people making minimum wage are adults people over 20 years of age so this is this is a big deal but it's also going to help the economy. In my business when I went back to turn it around it was flat on its back and one of the first things early things I did was to raise the rates for hourly workers dramatically. My own minimum wage increase from what I thought were pretty good wages before to even better and not only did it not cost me jobs it actually increased my productivity and increased the number of jobs and improved my company I mean we've done quite well turned it around and I think part of it is that so there's a lot of theory to suggest actually increasing the minimum wage increases aggregate demand it does a lot of things to make our economy more efficient and better and that's why I support it because it's going to help families it's going to help our economy. Let's switch gears one last time to a topic we've been hearing a lot about in the news this week out of Indiana. Kevin would like to know Governor Wolf in light of what has been going on in Indiana will you finally be the governor who pushes for equal protection in employment housing etc based on sexual orientation and gender identity. I have been pushing that throughout my campaign and I think yes I and I've continued to push for that since I've been inaugurated as governor so yes that's that's absolutely essential and as I pointed out throughout the campaign it's not just because it's the right thing to do it is but it's because it's smart in my business I was inclusive and I practiced diversity because I wanted to make sure that I was looking at a talent pool that was as broad as it could possibly be I was getting access to the best talent out there and and I think that's what we need to do and it's also something that we need to think about as Pennsylvanians this Commonwealth was founded by William Penn on the basis of freedom tolerance for religion freedom of conscience he came to Pennsylvania and the ship called the welcome and I think we need to make sure that Pennsylvania continues to be welcome and open to everybody regardless of who they are who they love religion they profess and and I think we all need to look at inclusion as something that's not just right but something that's also smart that's going to do it for us I just I guess I had one last question about social media in general since you were sworn in as governor you've done a Twitter town hall and now this Facebook town hall how's it been going and why do you think it's so important to interact with Pennsylvanians in this way well I think in a democracy you should look for any possible way you can interact with with the people who hired you the voters of Pennsylvania voted for me for governor and and I need to continue the conversation that I think I engaged in in the campaign and social media has been a great way to do that just one-way television or letters don't do it but I've had a Twitter town hall now that this and I'm 66 years old so this is this is new for me but but it's something that I think is really important and I'll keep looking for new ways to reach out to make sure that I'm communicating and listening and hearing what I should hear from the people who I serve thank you thank you so much for watching and feel free to weigh in on today's live stream Facebook town hall on Governor Wolf's Facebook page