by KYW's Tony Romeo
Another round of face-to-face negotiations between Governor Rendell and legislative leaders on Wednesday appeared to produce little progress on legislation that would legalize table games at Pennsylvania casinos.
With second-semester tuition bills about go out, Temple, Penn State and Pitt have hundreds of millions of state dollars hanging in the balance as the debate over table games drags on. And after meeting with top lawmakers, Governor Rendell said that every week table games are delayed means less revenue that the state is counting on:
Rendell: “That’s a huge factor, Tony, and that’s again something I reminded them of.”
Romeo: “At what point do you think you start to impinge on that?”
Rendell: “If we don’t do this in the next week or two, it starts to begin to hurt.”
The governor says he told legislative leaders under that scenario, he’ll start putting money in budgetary reserve, which would see state agencies delay spending. Lawmakers remain divided over a number of issues related to table games, including the rate at which they would be taxed.
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