Pa. lawmakers remain at a budget impasse more than a week after the state's deadline.
Haley O'Brien / WITF
Pa. lawmakers remain at a budget impasse more than a week after deadline
Lawmakers say they are making progress but are unclear about when the budget will be finalized
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Haley O'Brien/WITF
Haley O'Brien / WITF
Pa. lawmakers remain at a budget impasse more than a week after the state's deadline.
More than a week after Pennsylvania’s budget deadline, lawmakers remain at an impasse over a spending plan, extending the state’s streak of late budgets to five consecutive years.
Gov. Josh Shapiro’s spending plan was approved by the state House in April, but negotiations have continued in the Republican-controlled Senate. The Senate is now working to come to an agreement.
“Senate Democrats are ready to bring this budget process to a close,” Senate Democratic Leader Jay Costa said in a statement Wednesday. “Conversations have been happening constantly, and we look forward to having a final spending plan soon.”
While some hint that the stalemate will end soon, lawmakers have not been at the Capitol since last week and it’s unclear when they will return.
What’s in the budget proposal?
Shapiro’s $53.3 billion spending plan would increase overall spending by 5.4%.
The plan includes regulating skill games and recreational marijuana that would bring in an estimated $2 billion annually, but not enough to balance the budget. Shapiro’s proposal involves transferring more than $4.5 million from the state’s Rainy Day Fund into the General Fund.
An additional $100 million would be transferred out of the Rainy Day Fund to create a new Federal Response Fund.
Shapiro’s proposal would increase education spending by nearly 5%. That includes small increases in special education and basic education funding, and a more than 40% increase in the state’s Ready to Learn Block Grant.
This spending plan also intends to increase spending for student teacher stipends to address the teacher shortage and raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour for non-tipped employees and $9 for those who also receive tips.
Raising the minimum wage and marijuana legalization have been previously proposed and rejected by Republicans.
Chatter at the capitol
Lawmakers aren’t saying much about what the holdup is and when they believe the budget will be finalized.
“But I do know that there are active budget negotiations ongoing,” state Rep. Pete Schweyer (D-Lehigh) said Wednesday.
Shapiro expressed anger that the state Senate adjourned the day the budget was due.
“On the day they should be sending a budget to my desk, they decided to go home on vacation. I think it’s disrespectful to the people of Pennsylvania,” Shapiro said in a statement last week. “They [Senate Republicans] should be here and they should be working. We should work through this and finish the job together, and instead, they ran away.”
Sen. Dave Argall (R-Schuylkill) said he was on standby to return to the capitol late this week, but President Pro Tempore Kim Ward did not call Senators to come back for a vote.
Argall said he has heard from county commissioners in his district who are concerned that the impasse will leave their community scrambling for funding.
“In my mind, the sooner the better,” the Schuylkill County senator said. “But we need to see the numbers and then proceed accordingly.”
“We are on a pathway to achieve a budget in the days ahead.” Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman said in a social media statement July 1. “It should be well understood that we in the Senate are working diligently to make sure that the details and the hard work that it actually takes to deliver a budget continues.”
“I know that we’re making good progress, I know that everybody wants to get a quality budget as quickly as possible,” Schweyer, also the chair of the State House Education Committee, said, adding that he doesn’t think this impasse will last as long as last year’s.
“It feels like there’s a little bit more of a spirit of compromise,” he continued. “A little more of a spirit of ‘Let’s get this done.’”
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