SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY -- Governor Tom Wolf is traveling the state, promoting his plan to tax the natural gas industry to help pay for education, but counties and communities that already get a lot of cash from the state's impact fee on natural gas fear the governor's plan could take money from them.
We heard a lot concerns about the governor's severance tax in Susquehanna County.
A severance tax versus an impact fee on natural gas: it's a political debate now in Pennsylvania, and counties and communities counting on the impact fee currently in place fear Governor Tom Wolf's plan to change that.
"If that money ends up in Philadelphia, Harrisburg, or Pittsburgh, it doesn't do Susquehanna County any good and that's a huge problem for us," said Susquehanna County Commissioner Alan Hall.
Hall says the impact fee has helped that county eliminate all debt and fully fund pensions.
Several counties in our area got millions from the impact fee. Last year alone, Susquehanna County got $5 million.
Governor Wolf is pitching the severance tax to help pay for education. He says communities seeing all the drilling would get some help, but hasn't given many details.
"Any time you see a proposal coming out of Harrisburg that has no detail over exactly what it's going to do, we get very concerned," Hall said.
Local municipalities like townships in the Marcellus Shale region are watching the severance tax talk closely. Take Bridgewater Township. It got half a million dollars last year, more than half its annual budget.
"We're paving roads, we're rebuilding roads, we're buying equipment that we could have never afforded before," said township supervisor Chuck Mead.
Supervisors say areas with the drilling are dealing with the impact of all the truck traffic and deteriorating roads. They don't want to see any less money if a severance tax replaces the impact fee.
"Taking the impact fee away from the people around here is ridiculous, because they're not to be able to keep roads open," Mead said.
Governor Tome Wolf stopped at a school in Pottsville to promote his severance tax plan and Newswatch 16 asked him what that means for municipalities relying on that impact fee.
"The idea is that they will be able to count on the monies from this. As to whether its penny for penny, exactly what they got, I haven't done the math on that. But the idea is that the localities will not lose from this bill," said Governor Wolf.
The governor said the severance tax would be on top of impact fee amounts the state already collects but that severance tax would replace the impact fee.
