by Christin Brown | November 29, 2012 | News Releases
HARRISBURG, Nov. 29, 2012 – State Sen. Christine M. Tartaglione today praised Gov. Corbett’s recently expressed commitment to cutting the long waiting list of intellectually disabled adults who need community-based services.
Tartaglione was reacting to remarks made during the governor’s visit to Vision for Equality, in Philadelphia, as reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer.
“I’m encouraged that we might be seeing a change in direction for the administration which had previously targeted programs for vulnerable Pennsylvanians during budget cutting,” Tartaglione said. “We would welcome the governor to join us in the effort to create opportunity for every Pennsylvanian who is willing to work despite the challenges they face.”
Thousands of intellectually disabled adults have been idled on Pennsylvania’s waiting list for services that provide work training, personal care and therapy after they pass the age of 21.
During his visit yesterday, Corbett expressed the goal of finding the money to “eradicate the waiting list,” according to the Inquirer.
“Over the past two years, vulnerable Pennsylvanians have borne the burden of severe budget cuts and curtailment of services,” Tartaglione said. “My colleagues and I have offered a few good suggestions on how we can realign priorities to fund these services, but we’ve gotten no support from the administration. It looks like that might change.”
by Christin Brown | July 1, 2012 | News Releases
HARRISBURG, June 30, 2012 – More than three years after her first bill was introduced, Sen. Christine M. Tartaglione today praised House passage of a measure that will raise revenue for State Police training classes while creating a fairer fine-distribution system. Senate Bill 237 passed the House with an overwhelming majority tonight and heads to the governor’s desk.
The bill is expected to raise as much as $4 million for cadet training, while municipalities that provide less than 40 hours of local police coverage will lose their share of fines collected through State Police traffic stops.
“More and more municipalities have ended local police coverage to depend on state police,” Tartaglione said. “We have not been training enough new troopers to keep up. The House action tonight begins to reverse that trend.”
Under current law, half of the traffic-enforcement fines collected through state police patrols in a local municipality are returned to the municipality through a Motor License Fund formula – even if the municipality relies only on the state for police protection.
Senate Bill 237 will deny distribution of traffic-fine revenue from the Motor License Fund to any municipality that does not provide locally for at least 40 hours of coverage per week through its own force or a regional contract. Municipalities with fewer than 3,000 residents are exempt.
The bill, first introduced by Tartaglione in the 2009-10 session as SB 225, passed the Senate Transportation Committee unanimously more than a year ago. It is expected to affect about 1,200 municipalities across Pennsylvania.
