Pennsylvania’s state capitol building in Harrisburg, Pa on Election Day, Nov. 8, 2022.
Amanda Berg / For Spotlight PA
Bills that could prevent Pennsylvania budget delays are going nowhere
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Jaxon White/WITF
Amanda Berg / For Spotlight PA
Pennsylvania’s state capitol building in Harrisburg, Pa on Election Day, Nov. 8, 2022.
In Pennsylvania, missing the state budget deadline has gone from an exception to a near-expectation.
The cost of lawmakers’ habitual tardiness isn’t just political; it’s personal for those who rely on state dollars.
If school districts don’t receive state funds, some will need to take out loans to pay their bills, as Steelton-Highspire did and School District of Lancaster is considering. Who pays the interest on those loans? Pennsylvania taxpayers.
If SEPTA and other transit agencies don’t receive the state funds they need to keep public transportation in motion, some commuters who rely on train service and schoolchildren who rely on public buses could be left stranded, costing taxpayers more time and money.
This year’s state budget, overdue since July 1, is the fourth consecutive late spending plan. Some legislators want to break this pattern, but their fixes, in the form of bills that would incentivize lawmakers to meet their deadlines, languish in the hopper.
In Harrisburg, there appears to be little appetite for change.
In June, state Reps. Jill Cooper, R-Westmoreland, and Jim Haddock, D-Luzerne, introduced a bill to freeze paychecks for legislators, the governor and the lieutenant governor until a state budget has been adopted.
“If elected state officials felt the pain first, financially, it may give more incentive for them to put pressure on their leadership,” Haddock said. The bill remains stuck in the House Appropriations Committee, with no sign of movement.
Haddock laughed when asked if he’d gotten any pushback from his colleagues over his proposal to freeze their pay. He said reactions from fellow lawmakers have ranged from finger-pointing to indifference.
“But we’re in this together,” Haddock said.
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What Haddock is proposing was once common practice. But in 2009, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that state government employees, including lawmakers, must continue to receive their salaries.
Since then, some lawmakers have chosen to refuse their salaries during an impasse as a symbolic gesture. This year, according to the House chief clerk’s office, 10 House members have done so. The Senate chief clerk’s office did not provide a list.
Meanwhile, most of the state’s 253 lawmakers continue to make their full salaries — rank-and-filers make about $110,000 a year, not including additional perks like per diems. Many have already collected more than $15,000 this fiscal year.
Gov. Josh Shapiro has blamed the back-to-back budget delays since he took office on the fact that he’s negotiating with a divided General Assembly, where Democrats hold a narrow majority in the House and Republicans control the Senate.
Legislative leaders have lobbed insults at the other party for passing proposals they know are dead on arrival in their chamber.
Caught in the crossfire are many of their constituents.
Budget woes
Many other states don’t seem to have the same budget timing problems as Pennsylvania, at least this year.
As of mid-August, four states are operating without a finalized budget: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Oregon and North Carolina.
While North Carolina has a law that continues funding at the previous year’s rate until a new budget is signed into law, Pennsylvania lacks such a backstop. That leaves some critical services at the mercy of lawmakers’ vigilance.
State Rep. Marla Brown, R-Lawrence, wants to ensure payments continue during a budget impasse, specifically for certain essential services dealing with domestic violence, mental and behavioral health, intellectual disabilities, substance abuse treatment, and counties’ children and youth programs.
“I think the people that are at the negotiating table need to listen to the field more, get closer to the concerns of those that they represent,” Brown said. “Because there’s a lot of people being hurt by prolonging this.”
Brown’s bipartisan proposal has sat idle in the House Appropriations Committee since June 16. She said legislative leaders are likely resistant to changing budget rules to ensure lawmakers feel the pressure of a deadline.
“I think it’s an embarrassment that we let it come to this,” Brown said of this year’s negotiations.
READ: Trump’s withholding of federal funds, late state budget creates uncertainty for school districts
Pennsylvania has been here before. Its longest budget delay — nine months — occurred under Gov. Tom Wolf in 2015 and 2016, temporarily shutting down state-funded pre-K programs and domestic violence centers.
A year later, in July 2017, lawmakers passed a funding plan that was $2 billion out of balance. That disparity was not rectified until months later, when legislators approved balanced spending bills — often called code bills in the Capitol.
Vermont is the only state that’s not required to balance its budget, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
After the 2017 budget mess, as reported by WHYY, some lofty proposals were put forward to change how Pennsylvania lawmakers craft a budget, including one unsuccessful bill that would have required that code bills be passed in tandem with the overall spending plan.
Despite years of dysfunction, few structural reforms have gained traction. One reform proposal this year would potentially cause the largest impact in Harrisburg.
Sen. Lisa Boscola’s not-yet-introduced legislation would set Pennsylvania on a two-year spending plan. Similar bills have been introduced in past legislative years with little support.
“A two-year budget cycle would bring much-needed stability and predictability to the process. It would encourage long-range planning by state agencies and organizations that depend on state support,” Boscola, D-Northampton, wrote in a memo to lawmakers.
Twenty states use a two-year budget, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Where it stands
It’s unclear where budget negotiations stand this year. Leaders in both parties have repeatedly insisted that talks are progressing, while making few public moves to suggest so.
Legislative leaders disagree on a total spending number, as well as specific allocations for education, mass transit, and human services, like Medicaid. They also remain apart on how to tax and regulate games of skill.
Republican state senators adopted a temporary state budget in August to continue state funding largely at last year’s levels, but it was shot down by House Democrats last week.
House Appropriations Chairman Jordan Harris, D-Philadelphia, said majority lawmakers did so to maintain a “sense of urgency” to wrap up budget talks.
Beth Rementer, a spokeswoman for House Majority Leader Matt Bradford, D-Montgomery, said lawmakers work to pass timely budgets every year.
“While we’re willing to review any legislation that increases accountability for the budget negotiation process, we should not piecemeal a budget,” Rementer said. “We passed a budget and we passed transit funding. We’re doing our job. The Senate needs to do theirs.”
Spokespeople for Shapiro and Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman, R-Indiana, did not respond to a question asking what they’re doing to avoid future budget impasses.
For now, the blame game continues — while Pennsylvanians wait.
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