Early Task for Corbett...A Budget Secretary

Governor-elect Tom Corbett won’t take office until mid-January, but he'll be busy over the next few months.
Corbett will likely appoint a transition team and begin hiring administration staffers in the coming days.
After his Tuesday victory, he told reporters he’ll head to Harrisburg soon for a series of meetings.

"We’ll begin sitting down very quickly. Preliminarily with the legislature, to take a look at what the budget’s like. With the governor’s office, to take a look at what the details are like. But then also, one of the first appointments to the cabinet will be a budget secretary."


Corbett will deliver a budget address within weeks of taking office, so the incoming budget secretary will need to get to work right away, mapping out funding priorities and looking at line item-level details.
Political scientist Terry Madonna of Franklin and Marshall College says this will set the tone....

"The most important thing the governor will do will be in his first message to the state legislature. The budget message that he will have to deliver by the first or second week in March. He will lay out his message in sufficient detail, so the legislature will know the priorities of the new governor."

Governor Rendell has promised to work alongside Corbett, though an administration spokesman says a meeting has yet to be scheduled.
The Democrat says every state agency has prepared a memo for the incoming administration. Corbett will likely hold a transition press conference early next week.