Balya takes on the Tribune Review

[wisteria]

in a letter to the editor. Now you might think they would have allowed him to do an op-ed, but we know the Tribe wants to keeps its reader ignorant. But, if anyone living in or around Westmoreland County could post this to their Facebook page or even just give it a thumbs up, that would be great. We need to let people know how onesided that paper is.


Commissioner Balya bemoans Trib

After reading another "Lance" involving Westmoreland County commissioners in "Greensburg Laurels & Lances," I'm wondering just how idiotic the Trib's editorial staffers may be. For all the years they've written about Westmoreland County government, one would think that they might have a "working knowledge" of how the county's budget works.

Local property taxes make up 25 percent of our budget. The bulk of the remaining 75 percent comes from the commonwealth. Commissioner Charles Anderson's grandstanding 1-percent ($3.2 million) across-the-board cut could have resulted in a further reduction in funding from the commonwealth of $1.8 million, not savings of $3.2 million to county taxpayers.

Our spending is directly related to what we receive from the commonwealth. We would have simply been digging a deeper hole in the county budget.

While the government-hating Trib crows about Gov. Tom Corbett's budget, Pennsylvanians are quickly finding out that pandering to the super-wealthy hurts working families. And, sadly, the editorial staff at the Trib continues to show its ignorance of how the county budget operates.

Tom Balya

Greensburg

The writer, a Democrat, is a Westmoreland County commissioner.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/s_730132.html