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Budget negotiations ongoing as Pennsylvania lawmakers miss deadline • PA Spotlight
HARRISBURG — For the second year in a row, Pennsylvania’s budget is behind schedule, though top lawmakers say they expect a quick deal after a weekend of closed-door negotiations.
“I am encouraged by the progress that has been made over the last few days,” state Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R., Ind.) said in remarks Thursday as lawmakers filed out of the chamber. The Senate adjourned shortly afterward, while the state House adjourned Friday just after noon.
“We expect that business can be completed several days after June 30,” Pittman added, referring to Pennsylvania’s statutory budget deadline.
State government will continue to operate without a spending deal. The commonwealth is required to continue paying its employees, making debt payments and paying for federal programs like Medicaid, among other obligations. Schools, mental health and addiction treatment, and libraries will face a crisis only if the delay extends beyond a stalemate of weeks.
Still, “the deadline didn’t catch anyone by surprise,” state House Minority Leader Bryan Cutler (R., Lancaster) told reporters last week. “We all know it was there.”
Lawmakers’ current optimism that a deal is close stands in stark contrast to the sometimes acrimonious environment that gripped last year’s budget negotiations and ultimately led to a months-long impasse before the final pieces of the budget were approved.
This year, disagreements over spending on K-12 Education dominated the negotiations.
A state court ruled last year that Pennsylvania’s public education funding scheme is unconstitutionally unfair and tasked lawmakers with fixing it. That mandate, along with disagreements over how much of the community’s $15 billion surplus to spend, shaped the negotiations more than any other factor.
Democrats argue the court’s ruling requires sharp increases in education funding, while Republicans say spending too much could hurt the community’s financial situation.
In a series of late-night negotiations last week and over the weekend, negotiators have come closer to a spending figure that Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, state Senate Republicans and state House Democrats can agree on.
“I believe the fundamentals and foundation of a budget are there,” state House Appropriations Chairman Jordan Harris (D., Philadelphia) told Spotlight PA last week.
Along with the new spending plan, policymakers will also have to agree code accountsKey pieces of legislation that specify how the money is spent could include dozens of policy tweaks. Other changes to the law could also be dragged into negotiations to secure a deal; possibilities include updating alcoholic beverage laws or adding new crimes to the books.
Shapiro declined to give details of the deal, but said repeatedly that negotiations went well.
“We had a very productive and honest dialogue — a dialogue where all parties involved understand that the only way to do this is through a settlement, and that’s what we’re working toward now,” Shapiro said at a news conference Thursday.
The race to the budget deadline began with Shapiro’s budget speech in February, which was delivered 53 days after it was signed. final parts of last year’s budget almost six months late.
O address called for a $48.3 billion spending plan that would increase aid to public transportation, health careIt is housing.
Shapiro also introduced two new revenue streams: recreational marijuana It is skill games. He projected that levying these taxes would yield a total of $165 million in the next fiscal year, with additional growth thereafter.
But despite bipartisan support, both efforts stagnated due to resistance from lobbyists and disagreements among lawmakers.
A handful of Shapiro’s other budget proposals have resulted in legislative action, notably University education.
Last week, state House Democrats introduced the governor’s proposal to create a 15-member legislature. State Council of Higher Education. The new board would be tasked with coordinating credit transfers, issuing policy recommendations and collecting data from nearly 300 public and private colleges, universities and technical schools in the commonwealth. Another proposal by Shapiro to unify the governance of the state’s community colleges and public schools was not included in the bill.
The measure would also cap tuition and fees to attend state universities at $1,000 per semester for any student from a family with income at or below the state median — currently about $73,000 — and would increase the maximum size of state scholarships available to students at the same income level by $1,000 whether they attend a private or state school.
The bill also addressed some Democratic demands from the state House, such as encouraging dual enrollment of high school students in college classes.
“We know we haven’t reached a final agreement yet, and we’re not going to pretend that we have,” state Rep. Peter Schweyer (D., Lehigh) said Wednesday as the House Education Committee — which he chairs — considered Shapiro’s higher education proposal. “In fact, I’m cautiously optimistic that we’ll be able to reach an agreement that will ultimately reduce costs for students and make the entire system a little bit stronger than it is today.”
State Senate Republicans have said they don’t want to create any new bureaucracy, but they also introduced a scholarship program. Recipients would be required to work in an in-demand field in Pennsylvania after graduation. The bill passed the upper house unanimously last month.
The chamber also overwhelmingly approved a bill that takes dollars from the state of any higher education institution that divests from Israel or that aims to penalize Israel financially has broad bipartisan support. Shapiro supports the measure, but Harris told Spotlight PA that it did not come up in the lower chamber during budget negotiations.
State Rep. Chris Rabb (D., Philadelphia), a senior House progressive, said the central square that if Israel’s proposal were introduced in the state House, it would cause a “spectacle of epic proportions that no Democrat wants to see.”
Another key priority in Shapiro’s budget is money for economic development. He called for US$500 million in bonds to finance grants or loans for infrastructure, demolition or other costs associated with preparing land for new construction projects.
Established as a pilot program in last year’s budget, the proposed expansion was approved by the state House by a vote of 137 to 65 on Friday.
Pittman did not comment directly on the financing in a call with reporters earlier this month, but he expressed skepticism about issuing debt and wanted to see the state speed up the issuance of permits.
“In my opinion, there is no value in investing a lot of money in construction sites for economic development if we can’t put shovels in the ground to make the work happen,” Pittman said.
Both chambers have voting sessions scheduled through Wednesday. The Senate has also added voting days from the Friday after Independence Day through Sunday.
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