By Gillian McGoldrick<\/p>\n
The Philadelphia Inquirer<\/p>\n
HARRISBURG \u2014 Pennsylvania entered the new fiscal year on Wednesday without a state budget in place for a fifth consecutive year, while top leaders in the politically split Legislature publicly disagreed over whether a deal was near.<\/p>\n
Lawmakers in the Republican-controlled\u00a0Senate\u00a0and the Democratic-led House have known for months that\u00a0Pennsylvania\u00a0faces fiscal straits, as the state is on a path to spend more than it brings in in revenue in fiscal 2027. Top negotiators have spent weeks meeting behind closed doors about how the state should spend more than $50 billion in taxpayer dollars, in hopes of avoiding another drawn-out budget impasse.<\/p>\n
Under first-term Democratic Gov.\u00a0Josh Shapiro\u2019s\u00a0proposed $53.2 billion budget,\u00a0Pennsylvania\u00a0would spend $4.8 billion more than its $48.6 billion in projected revenue and would require lawmakers to create new revenue streams, cut spending, or raise taxes \u2014 or dip into the state\u2019s reserves.<\/p>\n
Senate Republicans on Tuesday recessed until legislators have a final budget deal to vote on, with Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman, an Indiana County Republican, saying there is \u201cno reason we cannot conclude our work early next week\u201d and that lawmakers \u201chave a very good trajectory in front of us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pittman \u2014 a top negotiator in the closed-door talks \u2014 made those remarks just one day after a\u00a0Senate\u00a0committee voted to gut the main spending bill in Shapiro\u2019s budget proposal, which was approved by the House in April, from $53.1 billion to $25 million.<\/p>\n
In a news conference Tuesday, House and Senate Democratic leaders offered a different picture: Despite lawmakers traditionally staying in Harrisburg in the days leading up to July Fourth in hopes of hashing out a deal, Senate Republicans were already packing up for the holiday weekend, the Democrats said, and are politically motivated to hold up the state budget. (House Democrats later canceled their scheduled legislative session on Thursday.)<\/p>\n
Senate Republicans are \u201cgoing 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. And by the way, it\u2019s Tuesday,\u201d said Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa, D-Allegheny.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bottom line is they\u2019re not serious about getting a budget done, they\u2019re slow-walking this process for weeks and weeks, and we\u2019re calling them on it,\u201d Costa said.<\/p>\n
Shapiro echoed the same frustration with\u00a0Senate Republicans\u00a0in an interview Tuesday, adding that the\u00a0Senate\u00a0\u201cdecided to go home on vacation\u201d when lawmakers are due to deliver a budget bill to him for his signature.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s disrespectful to the people of\u00a0Pennsylvania,\u201d Shapiro said, noting that\u00a0Pennsylvania\u00a0has a revenue surplus. \u201cThey should be here, and they should be working. And instead, they ran away.\u201d<\/p>\n
Senate GOP leaders, in a statement following their recess Tuesday, said they believe they are \u201cwell on our way to effectuating a full budget agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n
House Minority Leader Jesse Topper, R-Bedford, told reporters that legislative leaders have been constantly in contact \u201cover the past month\u201d no matter if members are in the building.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, the talks continue,\u201d Topper said. \u201cThis kind of stunt feels a lot like politics.\u201d<\/p>\n
Top legislative leaders have been tight-lipped about what the remaining sticking points are in budget talks.<\/p>\n
Pennsylvania is constitutionally required to deliver a balanced budget by the start of the new fiscal year on July 1, releasing state funds which are then sent to school districts, county governments and nonprofit organizations that offer critical services to residents.<\/p>\n
The true impact of the missed deadline won\u2019t be felt by local governments and schools for weeks. However, these entities are often required by law to submit their own budgets despite inaction by the state, often leaving them unable to predict how much state money to budget. State employees and lawmakers continue to receive pay during a state budget impasse.<\/p>\n
Last year, a nearly five-month budget impasse required schools, counties and service providers to cut jobs, take out high-interest loans or stop services altogether. The School District of Philadelphia, the state\u2019s largest, borrowed $1.5 billion to pay its bills, resulting in $30 million in interest and borrowing costs that weren\u2019t repaid when the state approved its annual spending plan.<\/p>\n
Lawmakers were at a bitter standstill about whether to allocate a new, reliable funding stream for public transit, reviving the state\u2019s long-held rural-urban divide. Members also couldn\u2019t agree on how much to spend, until ultimately reaching a $50.1 billion budget deal in November.<\/p>\n
This year, both chambers have slim margins for budget votes:\u00a0House Democrats\u00a0hold a one-seat majority, while\u00a0Senate Republicans\u00a0have a three-seat majority with several conservative members who rarely support spending increases. This often means legislative leaders must work with the minority parties to come to a final deal.<\/p>\n
On Monday, Senate Republican leaders did not show up to a scheduled meeting with Shapiro and Democratic leaders, Costa said, signaling potential discord.<\/p>\n
Legislators still need to reach agreements on a number of issues, including whether to tax and regulate so-called skill games differently from slot machines and whether the state should overhaul existing school choice programs.<\/p>\n
Democrats\u00a0have wholly backed Shapiro\u2019s budget proposal, which included legalizing recreational marijuana and raising the state minimum wage.\u00a0Republicans\u00a0have emphasized a need to slow down spending, citing the state\u2019s structural deficit.<\/p>\n
The leaders will also trade a number of legislative priorities in closed-door meetings unrelated to state spending as part of an overall deal, such as data center oversight proposals.<\/p>\n
In\u00a0Pennsylvania, the state budget topped $50 billion for the first time last year. It had increased by 25% \u2014 about $10 billion \u2014 over a five-year period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Gillian McGoldrick The Philadelphia Inquirer HARRISBURG \u2014 Pennsylvania entered the new fiscal year on Wednesday without a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233176,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,729],"class_list":["post-233175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233175","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=233175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}