Faced with a multi-billion-dollar budget gap, Pennsylvania's next chief executive will have no choice but to cut state spending, gubernatorial candidate Dan Onorato said Monday.

But that doesn't mean funding for higher education has to suffer, he said.

Appearing at Penn State University Park, the Democratic nominee from Allegheny County said "there's a lot of waste yet" to be culled from state budgets. By shrinking the state Legislature itself at least 20 percent, freeing $200 million now set aside for political earmarks and finding other governmental efficiencies, Onorato said, Harrisburg can generate substantial resources to help finance universities and contain tuition rates.

"My priorities will be education" on the pre-kindergarten, primary and collegiate levels, Onorato said, addressing about 100 people at a Penn State Grassroots Network forum event in the HUB-Robeson Center. It lasted about an hour.

The Grassroots Network, an advocacy group that lobbies on the university's behalf, invited both Onorato and the GOP gubernatorial candidate, Tom Corbett, to appear in its ongoing forum series on education. Corbett's campaign declined the invitation, network Director Alan Janesch said. (He was quick to add that the network respects the time pressures and constraints faced by both campaigns. Corbett is expected to attend a rally at University Park on Wednesday.)

If elected, Onorato said he would try to make sure Penn State and the three other state-related universities in Pennsylvania -- Temple, Pittsburgh and Lincoln -- see funding increases more on par with those received by the 14 universities in the State System of Higher Education. The state system, owned wholly by the state, includes universities and colleges such as Lock Haven, Clarion, Kutztown and Shippensburg.

Over the past decade, that system has seen state-funding boosts substantially greater than the bumps received by the state-related universities, said D.J. Ryan, a committee leader in the Penn State Council of Commonwealth Student Governments. Meanwhile, the Penn State administration has argued, lackluster support from Harrisburg has forced it to put a greater tuition burden on students.

Penn Staters now pay some of the highest tuition rates among public universities in the U.S. At the same time, appropriations from the state have been relatively stagnant in recent years; they now make up less than 10 percent of the total university budget -- down from nearly 37 percent in 1970.

Onorato graduated from the university with an accounting degree in 1983. He went on to earn a law degree at the University of Pittsburgh and now serves as chief executive in the Allegheny County government. (Sports side note: He has said he would support a restoration of the Pitt-Penn State football rivalry. And he has forecast a Penn State football win over Michigan on Saturday.)

During his Monday appearance at University Park, Onorato also argued that universities are "a key part of our economic engine" and that Penn State, with its land-grant mission and statewide reach, has an especially critical role. He said he would support state action to establish and support, with Penn State, specialty programs "that allow us to put money in Penn State, keep it competitive."

Those programs could focus heavily on technical, science, math and engineering, helping strengthen Pennsylvania's core of jobs and skilled workers in those arenas, Onorato said. He underscored a campaign idea that would have the state match private donations to such programs at the university level.

Harrisburg could encourage federal research grants for Pennsylvania higher education in much the same way, Onorato said -- by pledging to match up to $25 million a year.

Among other priorities Onorato mentioned Monday:

• Reforming the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, which he tweaked for its bureaucracy and overhead expenses. He has said he would like the state to increase its tuition assistance -- efficiently -- by $400 million over the next four years. For the most financially needy students, Onorato said, the added funding would allow PHEAA to provide maximum annual grants equal to the tuition cost at the state-owned college and universities. College students would be able to use their PHEAA-provided grants -- calculated according to need -- at any worthy institution in the state. Onorato has said he wants to make sure every family can afford to college.

• Making Penn State a central figure in the state's handling of the Marcellus Shale gas boom. He said Pennsylvania should follow the 21 other states with gas and oil resources and establish a severance tax on gas that would help fund the state Department of Environmental Protection and local governments' infrastructure expenses. Proceeds also would go toward a environmental fund to support farmland conservation, brownfield clean-up and similar efforts. In addition, Onorato said, Marcellus Shale drillers in the state should be made to employ Pennsylvanians. And he said Penn State continue can play a key role in training those workers. Meanwhile, the university's alumni in the field "who are making a lot of money" from the shale can help foster an understanding of the issue, Onorato said. "We should take advantage of that brain power and the knowledge that comes out of here."

• Supporting agriculture. Onorato said he believes that Penn State could take on a "special role" -- given its land-grant status and historic importance --  in supporting small farmers and promoting a locally based food chain. The state could help pay for that, he said.

Onorato fielded 15 questions from the audience during his Penn State appearance. One asked whether it's unfair to voters that his running mate, lieutenant-governor candidate Scott Conklin, of Rush Township, is running simultaneously to retain his seat in the state House. (Conklin has said he would relinquish the House seat if he wins both offices.)

"Obviously, he's doing what presidents have done, what senators have done. Vice President Biden did it," Onorato said, referring to the practice of running for two offices at once. He said it would be a problem if Conklin were trying to hold two offices simultaneously, but that that's not the case.

"I don't have a problem with him running" for both offices, Onorato said. " .... It's our system."

If there were a constitutional amendment to forbid the practice, he went on, "that'd be fine with me. But that's not our system right now."

Meeting with reporters after his formal remarks, Onorato was asked about Corbett's assessment of a recent television advertisement as "despicable" and "unforgivable." The ominous-sounding ad, put out by the Onorato campaign, suggests that senior-citizen programs could be slashed if Corbett is elected.

"You're talking about Tom Corbett, who has been lying every week in his ads," Onorato said. He said that Corbett has indicated that he would "cut everything" as governor. And he said that Corbett hasn't been clear about exactly how those cuts will take shape.

"He's cutting across the board," Onorato said.

Earlier coverage

• Penn State Rally Planned for Toomey, Corbett (Oct. 19, 2010)