I had an early breakfast this morning with the Blair/Bedford Builders Association. There were some Realtors sprinkled into the crowd as well. These folks have an annual legislative breakfast where all of the legislators speak and then stand for questions. We had a good discussion this morning about the budget, “Smart Growth”, DEP, permits in general, taxes, some specific legislation and other items of interest. These people are always engaged in the process and host a dinner and sometimes a picnic that they invite me too. They like to stay in touch. I spoke to a group of retired school employees in Huntingdon at lunch time. They had a large group of retired teachers, superintendents, secretaries and janitors, all from the public schools in Huntingdon County. I talked about the budget and the many problems we face currently in the legislature. I touched on the problems with the retirement funds in which they have a deep interest. The school retirees fund lost almost 28 billion dollars over the past year or so and a projected spike in the fund is projected for 2015 that will be extremely costly. The state employee retirees fund is equally in trouble. These funds can’t be sustained with current levels of funding and will be a big problem for taxpayers by 2015, if not before.
- John
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