By Jim Panyard   Pennsylvania Independent.

Gov. Tom Corbett is expected to offer some answers Tuesday to a variety of questions generated by his tight-lipped, low-key administration as he delivers his first budget address to the General Assembly.

How does he plan to fill a $4 billion to $5 billion budget hole without raising taxes or fees, as he promised during last year’s gubernatorial campaign?

Will spending cuts have to be picked up by the same taxpayers at their local levels of government?

Will the state’s complement of 191,000 teachers and 82,000 other employees be reduced?

What will be done to address the looming multi-billion dollar shortfall in state pension funding?

How large will the seemingly inevitable cut to state funding for education actually wind up being?

Will “corporate welfare” funding, the passing of taxpayer dollars to private businesses, continue, be reduced or eliminated?

What are the “essential functions” of state government in the mind of Mr. Corbett and his advisors?

Will the Republican-controlled General Assembly “rubber stamp” the new governor’s plans?

Will organized public labor unrest surface here as it has in a half dozen other states?

Corbett’s budget secretary, Charles Zogby, labeled this the “Day of Reckoning” during a presentation at the Pennsylvania Press Club last week.

While it may not be an event of biblical proportions, it should give a sense of whether Corbett means to radically change state government operations or simply try to patch and repackage them.

Silence on the Hill

The public face of the governor is antithetical to that of his predecessor, Democrat Gov. Ed Rendell, who was a media favorite with his “shoot from the lip” style, punctuated with news conferences, media appearances and a broad knowledge of public policy questions.

Corbett’s staff is taciturn and – at this point – not given to speculation or even timely turnaround of media inquiries.

Hours from kicking off the annual state budget scrum,which begins at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, there was no meaningful idea of the Corbett game plan.

Reading the Signs

State General Fund spending has historically grown at double or triple the annual rate of inflation, while an aging and stagnant population has found it increasingly difficult to keep funding government in the manner to which it has become accustomed.

The state’s General Fund budget is currently $28 billion. Five years ago it was $24.6 billion. A decade ago it was $19.8 billion.

Faced with the impracticality of adding to state taxpayer burdens, Corbett made it clear during his campaign and on Inauguration Day that cuts will be made. He will say where he wants the ax to fall on Tuesday.

Education spending appears to be in for a cut of at least $1 billion, due to a cut-off of federal stimulus dollars Rendell pumped into K-12 programs. If the cuts in education are offset by increases in local property taxes by school boards with unilateral taxing powers, is that a plus or minus for Corbett?

Corbett has also sent mixed signals about his plans for economic development during his first 48 days in office. He canceled a planned $200 million state prison for economically-distressed Fayette County, while approving another $42 million investment in the failing Aker Philadelphia Shipyards, which has already been subsidized with nearly $500 million in local, state and federal taxpayer money.

C. Alan Walker, Corbett’s nominee for secretary of the Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) told a state Senate committee last week there will be still be tax dollars used for private business ventures but they will be used more strategically and with more discretion than in the past. The DCED is a primary source of the heavily criticized “WAMs,” or “Walking Around Money,” used by lawmakers for pet projects in their districts.

Public Employee Pensions

This year, $181 million is in the General Fund budget for public employee pension costs. There will be $400 million for the pensions in Corbett’s budget plan, required by law.

Taxpayers are faced with multi-billion shortfalls in state and local pension funds by 2013 and will have to fund significant increases in pension costs at both levels.

Labor Watch

Labor leaders will be watching Corbett carefully Tuesday.

Rick Bloomingdale, president of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, said last week he doesn’t foresee labor unrest like that which has rocked statehouses in Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio.

“We know Governor Corbett has a tough budget year, a tough position,” said Bloomingdale. “But, we believe him to be a man of his word. He has said he will bargain with the unions.”

The states with unrest, Bloomingdale said, have threatened to take away collective bargaining rights or violate existing agreements.

“He’s a law-and-order type guy. He will obey the law,” Bloomingdale said of the governor.

Seventeen of 19 Pennsylvania state employee labor agreements expire at the end of the current fiscal year.