Pa. state budget shortfall nearing $500 million (Associated Press)

PETER JACKSON

The Associated Press

HARRISBURG, Pa. - Halfway through Pennsylvania's fiscal year, the state government revenue shortfall is already approaching a half-billion dollars, according to revenue figures the Corbett administration released Tuesday.

Overall collections trailed estimates by 4 percent, or $487 million through December, and most major tax lines lagged estimates for the month and the year to date.

Gov. Tom Corbett's office said he has extended a pay freeze for thousands of nonunion management employees in the executive branch, as well as himself and members of his Cabinet, but it was unclear whether that would produce significant savings.

Corbett spokesman Kevin Harley said other austerity initiatives "will be forthcoming" from the administration, but he declined to elaborate.

Germantown neighbors rally against Kelly Playground demolition

November 29, 2011

By Kristen Mosbrucker
for NewsWorks

About 40 residents attended a Northwest Neighbors meeting at Canaan Baptist Church in Germantown to discuss a new twist in the Queen Lane Apartments demolition plan.

The Philadelphia Housing Authority, which owns the apartment complex and adjacent Kelly Playground, plans to build 55 low-income apartments along the perimeter of the square. To do so, however, residents said PHA will have to demolish the existing playground.

They rallied against the fact that a city ordinance, which was sponsored by Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller and passed in April 2010, conveyed the $176,000 land on which the playground sits to PHA for $1.

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Pennsylvania grapples with restitution for wrongly convicted

By Bobby Kerlik, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, November 28, 2011

Vincent Moto walked out of a Pennsylvania prison with the clothes on his back and no money to his name after DNA evidence cleared him of a rape charge that put him behind bars for more than 10 years.

Sixteen years later, he's struggling to find work, can barely pay the gas and electric bills at his home, and said he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.

"I've been out for a while, and I'm still struggling, trying to find a way to survive," said Moto, 48, of Philadelphia. "A woman drops hot coffee on her leg and gets millions. I spent 10 1/2 years behind bars for a crime I didn't commit, and I get nothing. Pennsylvania just doesn't seem to want to pass a compensation bill for the wrongfully convicted."

11 STATES SEEK 'NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND WAIVERS'

Eleven states have submitted waiver requests to get out from under provisions of the No Child Left Behind, less than two months after President Barack Obama announced he would excuse states from some requirements of the Bush-era education reform law.

Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Tennessee put in applications for the waiver by Monday, meeting the first of three deadlines, the Education Department announced.

Dueling Governors Discuss Education Policy

Governors past and present are calling for different approaches to education funding in Pennsylvania.
It was like a case of dueling governors Tuesday with their Capitol Rotunda rallies separated by less than an hour.

First, Gov. Tom Corbett stood at a podium, surrounded by students and supporters of school vouchers and school choice. He said pumping more money into public education isn't going to fix the system's problems.

"Go back and look at it, we have been spending more money," Corbett said. "We haven't gotten any better, as far as I'm concerned."

And then came Corbett's predecessor, former Gov. Ed Rendell, citing a federal study showing the commonwealth was among a handful of states whose public schools improved in all grades and subjects over the past eight years.