Pennsylvania lawmakers missed Tuesday\u2019s state-mandated deadline to adopt a budget, but Republican leaders in the GOP-controlled state Senate say they are close to reaching a deal.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe we are well on our way to effectuating a full budget agreement in the days following July 4th,\u201d said Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward of Hempfield, Majority Leader Joe Pittman of Indiana and Appropriations Chair Scott Martin of Lancaster County in a joint statement.<\/p>\n
Democrats in the House and Senate lashed out at their Republican colleagues for adjourning Tuesday without having a deal in place.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re going to tell you that progress is being made and that it\u2019s important that we allow time for members to go home for the weekend \u2014 by the way, it\u2019s Tuesday, the weekend doesn\u2019t start until Friday,\u201d Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa, D-Forest Hills, said during a joint news conference with Democratic leaders from both chambers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are not serious about getting a budget done. They\u2019ve been slow-walking this process for weeks and weeks,\u201d Costa added.<\/p>\n
This is the fifth straight year Pennsylvania has failed to adopt a budget by the June 30 deadline. Lawmakers have now missed the deadline 15 of the past 23 years.<\/p>\n
Neither Democrats nor Republicans would go into specifics when asked what was holding up a budget deal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis week, we have received the necessary clarity on many outstanding issues which were delaying completion of this year\u2019s budget,\u201d Ward, Pittman and Martin said in their prepared statement.<\/p>\n
While the House is scheduled to be in session on Wednesday and Thursday, the Senate will remain on recess until called to report back by Ward \u201conce final budgetary language is ready to advance,\u201d the Senate leaders said.<\/p>\n
Otherwise, the Senate isn\u2019t scheduled to return to session until Sept. 28.<\/p>\n
The House passed Gov. Josh Shapiro\u2019s proposed $53.3 billion spending plan in mid-April \u2014 the earliest it had initially passed a spending plan in nearly a decade.<\/p>\n
It has been in the Senate since.<\/p>\n
That plan would require using about $4.6 billion in reserves to balance. That would eat up more than half of the state\u2019s so-called rainy day fund, formally known as the Budget Stabilization Reserve Fund.<\/p>\n
The House spending plan also relies on collecting revenue from three sources that have been debated in Harrisburg for years but have yet to gain approval. They include a projected $766 million from taxing and regulating video \u201cskill\u201d games, $729 million from legalizing marijuana for recreational use and $80 million from raising the state\u2019s minimum wage to $15 an hour.<\/p>\n
Republicans have been critical of what they see as exorbitant, deficit spending. For months, Democrats have called on Senate Republicans to offer up an alternative.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe passed the budget in April \u2014 April. They haven\u2019t done anything,\u201d House Appropriations Chair Jordan Harris, D-Philadelphia, said during Tuesday\u2019s news conference with Democratic leaders. \u201cHere\u2019s the thing: you don\u2019t like our budget? Fine, send us one. They ain\u2019t sent us one.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the Office of the Budget, the state continues to operate all critical functions related to the health, safety and welfare of Pennsylvanians during an impasse. Most payments to vendors or grantees for programs or expenses incurred during the new fiscal year will not be processed until a budget is adopted, the budget office said.<\/p>\n
The impacts become more pronounced the longer an impasse drags on.<\/p>\n
Last year\u2019s impasse lasted 135 days, delaying billions in state funding to schools, counties and nonprofits.<\/p>\n
Many dipped into reserves or borrowed money to stay afloat, while others laid off workers or suspended or scaled back programs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania lawmakers missed Tuesday\u2019s state-mandated deadline to adopt a budget, but Republican leaders in the GOP-controlled state Senate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-232259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}