By Alex Roarty
PoliticsPA Staff Writer
roarty@politicspa.com

HARRISBURG — A Wednesday afternoon debate among four of the gubernatorial candidates featured some new distinctions in their messages but mostly retread themes and rhetoric that close observers of the race have heard many times before.

Three Democrats, Jack Wagner, Dan Onorato and Joe Hoeffel, and one Republican, Sam Rohrer, participated. State Sen. Anthony Williams and Attorney General Tom Corbett were invited but did not attend because of other commitments.

The debate, hosted by the United Way of Pennsylvania, focused on issues facing non-profit organizations, which were hit hard last year during the state’s 101-day delay. The non-profits did not receive payments from the during the impasse, a strain that, according to a United Way study, caused 61 percent of them to cut services and staff.

Many of the social-welfare groups took out loans to help cover their expenses, which they now must pay interest on. Hoeffel, Rohrer and Onorato each said the state should cover that cost, but Auditor General Wagner hedged, saying in an interview afterward he would like to do so but only if the state could make sure the money it spent was used correctly.

The auditor general has made his tenure as the state’s fiscal watchdog the hallmark of his campaign, and he unveiled a new wrinkle to his resume’ based on a report his office released Tuesday. The report criticized state government for ineffectively handling a property tax relief system that drew money from casino slots revenues.

“What our department has identified is hundreds of thousands, hundreds of thousands, of property owners are not receiving prop tax relief,” Wagner said. “Why? Because of a lack of solid communication telling people what they deserve.”

He has routinely touted his office’s audits of the Department of Public Welfare and state government’s process of awarding contracts as proof he knows how to save taxpayers money be rooting out inefficiency.

Hoeffel even joked he planned to implement each of Wagner’s audits when he became governor, saying the auditor general’s recommendations were “totally on target.”

The Montgomery County Commissioner himself used the forum to declare it would be a “great mistake” if Pennsylvania used money for public schools for anything other than the state’s system. The schools already receive precious little money, he said.

“If we use any of those scarce resources to fund non-public schools, we are turning our backs” on the public-school system, he said.

Hoeffel’s statement seemed designed to deliberately clash with support for a school-voucher system favored by the new Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Anthony Williams. An emerging pillar of Williams’ campaign has become his support of multiple educational avenues, with the senator saying he doesn’t want children to be stuck in a monopolistic system.

His position is normally one held by Republicans, and Hoeffel has positioned himself as a champion of liberal values.

A Franklin & Marshall College poll released Wednesday morning showed Hoeffel, Wagner, and Onorato in a dead heat for the nomination, with each man receiving just 6 percent support among registered Democrats. Observers and analysts are mixed about the effect Williams, who says he’s raised almost $2 million already, will have on the primary, although Onorato and the more $6 million he has on hand is still seen as the clear front-runner.

The Allegheny County chief executive during the forum highlighted achievements made during his tenure, particularly a program he says gave seniors continuing care in their homes to help them avoid nursing or other assisted-living facilities.

Onorato, like the other three candidates, also vowed the state’s social-service system would not have to suffer through another budget delay if he becomes governor.

“I would never put that segment of the population in the middle of a political discussion, political debate, political argument,” he said.

Rohrer, the only Republican on stage, emphasized the importance of state government performing “honest-budgeting,” which he said would let non-profits and other groups know clearly and early how much support they can expect from the state in the next fiscal year.

“A predictable revenue stream is important in budgeting,” he said.

Each of the candidates said they would not tap money from the state lottery to pay for programs other than the ones it’s funding now, and each expressed serious reservations, if not hostility, to possible rent-control legislation.