As top state lawmakers continued to struggle to find a global agreement on a nearly $2.2 billion revenue package Sunday night, it looks more and more likely that Gov. Tom Wolf will have to make a decision about whether to partially or fully veto the $31.99 billion state spending plan on his desk or allow it to lapse into law since an agreement is unlikely to wind through the legislative process by the Monday midnight deadline to bring it into balance.

Sen. John DiSanto (R-Dauphin), first elected to the General Assembly this past November, has already introduced and taken action on a number of bills aimed to limit the growth of state and local government spending. 

The bipartisan revenue package passed by the House and Senate and signed into law by Gov. Wolf in July included a variety of tax increases, but notably on cigarettes and digital downloads.

Digital downloads, and streaming as well, now have a 6 percent tax, which includes services like iTunes downloads, eBooks, and Netflix to name a few.

Saying they want a $400 million increase in education funding paid through broad-based tax increases, representatives of the Pennsylvania School Business Officials and Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators said a lack of education funding, timely PlanCon reimbursements, and the recently concluded budget impasse have left Pennsylvania’s school districts scrambling to keep the doors open.

Soon-to-be-introduced legislation by Rep. Mike Sturla (D-Lancaster) to place a fee on water use received support from lawmakers and advocates Monday morning.

Depending on the type of water withdrawn and its subsequent use, the fee would be either 1/100^th of a cent or 1/10^th of a cent and is estimated to be able to generate $245 million annually for Pennsylvania.