Wolf vetoes Pennsylvania's fiscal code

HARRISBURG - Gov. Wolf has vetoed the state's fiscal code, which was passed along with the Pennsylvania budget, citing concerns about how it would divide money for schools, borrow $2.5 billion, affect greenhouse gas emissions at power plants, and regulate oil and gas drilling.

The first-term Democrat made the fiscal code his first veto of the year Friday afternoon, two days after he announced he was going to let the Republican-crafted main budget bill become law without his signature.

The 101-page fiscal code bundles together a variety of items to implement the state budget. Wolf's one-page letter to state representatives sent the bill back to the House.

House Republican spokesman Steve Miskin said that the veto was being reviewed and that leaders were talking with Senate colleagues to determine if they will take any action. "There's nothing new in the fiscal code, and there are things the administration has agreed to previously," Miskin said. "Also, some of their assumptions are just wrong, but we're reviewing and will made decisions later."

Wolf said that the legislation includes a school funding distribution formula he considers one of the most unfair in the country and that bond borrowing would be expanded without addressing the state's structural deficit.

Jeff Sheridan, the governor's spokesman, said last week that the administration would distribute school subsidies "in the most appropriate manner possible, just as we did in December when the governor signed a partial general appropriations bill that was without an accompanying fiscal code because the legislature did not pass one."