PA Budget Impasse Continues As Senate Approves Party-Line Spending Plan

By Peter Hall | Pennsylvania Capital-Star

Pennsylvania State Capitol building from above State Street in Harrisburg. File photo.

The Pennsylvania Senate passed a new $47.9 billion budget proposal Tuesday as Democrats warned of the consequences of not fully funding schools and social safety net programs.

The party line vote came on the 113th day after the June 30 deadline to pass a spending plan. It was also done nearly two weeks after the House passed a $50.25 billion proposal with bipartisan support.

Senate Republicans leaders said the new proposal meets their requirements of imposing no tax increase while fully funding the commonwealth’s debt service and school employees pension program. They argued the proposal leads by example, with a 5% cut in spending for the legislature.

“One day and one vote. That’s all we need from the House Democrats to end this Shapiro shutdown,” Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R-Indiana) said in debate on the Senate floor. “The budget in front of us is a budget based on needs. It is not a budget based on wants.”

Gov. Josh Shapiro’s $51.6 billion proposal in February also contained no tax increases.

But it did call for the legalization of adult-use recreational marijuana and the regulation and taxation of slot machine-like Skill Games that have become common in Pennsylvania and many other states. Those proposals would have created roughly $800 million in new revenue, Shapiro’s office said.

Democrats roundly criticized the plan as “unserious” and a failure to compromise.

“It’s a joke,” Shapiro told reporters after an event in Allegheny County. “It doesn’t actually meet the obligations of this commonwealth. It’s a gimmick, and it’s not designed to be serious or get the job done.”

Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward (R-Westmoreland) said Shapiro’s to blame for the late budget, noting that this year’s is the third of his administration.

“He has been unable to bring the parties together so instead he flies around the state on taxpayer dollars getting his face in front of the cameras and pointing fingers. That’s not how, using the governor’s words, you ‘get stuff done,’” Ward said.

Elizabeth Rementer, a spokesperson for House Majority Leader Matt Bradford (D-Montgomery), said Senate Republican leaders have been unable to pass a budget that meets the state’s needs because they’re unable to muster support for such a plan among members of their caucus.

“By their own admission, they need Senate Democratic votes to pass a real budget,” Rementer said in a statement. “They lack the courage to advance a real budget that would require bipartisan support from their chamber.”

Before the Senate’s 27-23 vote, Minority Leader Jay Costa (D-Allegheny) argued to restore the proposal the House passed Oct. 8. That was the House’s response to a budget bill the Senate first passed in August.

Costa noted the House plan included a $565 million court-mandated funding increase for the state’s most underfunded schools, $1.3 billion in Department of Human Services funding, and millions more for student teacher stipends, college tuition grants and food banks.

“There are many other reasons why we should not be supporting this,” Costa said. “We believe that it should be something that should be done in a bipartisan way — four leaders, getting together with the administration, getting in a room and making sure we can hammer out an appropriate budget that allows us to end this impasse.”

Minority Appropriations Committee Chair Vincent Hughes (D-Philadelphia), noting that Pennsylvanians are hurting and the federal government is making things worse.

“We sit with $3 billion of operational surplus and $8 billion in the rainy day fund. We should be able to get this done. It’s 113 days late. This does not advance the bar,” Hughes said.

Hughes later added the additional money for underfunded schools would help more than two-thirds of the state’s districts, many of which are in staunchly Republican rural areas.

“You know, they say politics should be parochial. You got to worry about your own community,” Hughes said. “But you know, I find out that we often worry about the folks who we don’t even represent because it seems like the folks who do represent them don’t want to take care of them.”

Pennsylvania Capital-Star is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Tim Lambert for questions: info@penncapital-star.com.