{"id":234667,"date":"2026-07-03T12:33:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T12:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/234667\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T12:33:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T12:33:07","slug":"pennsylvanias-budget-is-late-for-the-fifth-year-in-a-row-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/234667\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania\u2019s budget is late for the fifth year in a row | State"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spotlight PA<\/a> is an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit newsroom producing investigative and public-service journalism that holds power to account and drives positive change in Pennsylvania. Sign up for our free newsletters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

HARRISBURG \u2014 Pennsylvania\u2019s budget is late for the fifth year in a row.<\/p>\n

The Republicans who control the state Senate sent their members home on the Tuesday deadline without a deal, and said in a statement that the week\u2019s talks had given them \u201cnecessary clarity on many outstanding issues which were delaying completion of this year\u2019s budget.\u201d<\/p>\n

They estimated that a deal will be in the offing \u201cin the days following July 4th\u201d and said they\u2019ll return to session once final language is ready.<\/p>\n

The Democrats who lead the state House were less positive in a news conference later Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Senate Republican majority is failing again, not leading, not working, not compromising, and most importantly, not finishing the job we\u2019re all charged to do,\u201d House Speaker Joanna McClinton (D., Philadelphia) said.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, who didn\u2019t attend the news conference, did not return a request for comment.<\/p>\n

One of the biggest issues overshadowing budget talks is the state\u2019s longstanding structural deficit. In recent years, lawmakers have dipped into the state\u2019s cash reserves to make up for spending more than Pennsylvania generates in revenue. Now virtually all that\u2019s left is their emergency reserve fund.<\/p>\n

Democrats have proposed using some of it<\/a>, noting that it\u2019s flush with nearly $8 billion. Republicans argue that\u2019s fiscally irresponsible. Democrats, in turn, say they\u2019ve advanced multiple revenue proposals \u2014 such as legalizing and taxing recreational marijuana and regulating and taxing skill games \u2014 and Republicans haven\u2019t come to a consensus on any of them.<\/p>\n

Other policy debates are complicating the picture.<\/p>\n

Along with being Harrisburg\u2019s likeliest new revenue option, skill games across the commonwealth are in peril after the state Supreme Court ruled last month<\/a> that they are operating illegally. The court stayed enforcement until October, but if lawmakers don\u2019t legalize and regulate the machines by then, they\u2019ll be subject to seizure.<\/p>\n

Recent weeks have also featured considerable action on data centers. House Democrats passed two conflicting proposals<\/a> \u2014 one, backed by Shapiro, would add conditions to a state tax exemption in an effort to incentivize better behavior from developers; another would repeal the benefit entirely.<\/p>\n

Senate Republicans also proposed<\/a> cutting the data center tax exemption, adding the measure this week to a sweeping package that would also expand a tax credit that funds private school scholarships and eliminate a 5.9% state tax on the sale of electricity \u2014 both of which would make the budget deficit worse. The electricity tax cut in particular is estimated to cost the state $1.7 billion in the next fiscal year.<\/p>\n

The state House passed its own version of that electricity tax cut. Neither chamber has directly addressed how it would affect the overall budget picture. House Minority Leader Jesse Topper (R., Bedford) argued that the cut would \u201crejuvenate\u201d the economy by lowering customers\u2019 utility bills. He added that the state \u201cshould look at places to get rid of stuff\u201d to cover revenue gaps.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we cut taxes, it forces the government to make decisions that they need to make or should have made years ago,\u201d Topper added.<\/p>\n

Topper also said lawmakers have intentionally left some of Harrisburg\u2019s more contentious issues out of budget talks in an effort to smooth the process, including \u201cmore robust\u201d school choice programs, increasing the state\u2019s minimum wage<\/a>, and legalizing and taxing recreational marijuana.<\/p>\n

State House Education Committee Chair Pete Schweyer (D., Lehigh) indicated in an interview<\/a> with Spotlight PA that lawmakers are approaching overall education policy in a similar way.<\/p>\n

The issue has been a major point of budget tension in recent years, but Schweyer said that while last year\u2019s education code was \u201cextremely dense and had a lot of things in it that we were extremely proud of,\u201d this year\u2019s likely wouldn\u2019t \u201cbe quite as robust, but I don\u2019t necessarily think it has to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is little impact on the state if the budget is late by a matter of days or weeks.<\/p>\n

The state has a constitutional obligation to pass a balanced budget<\/a> by June 30 each year, and up until 2009, that deadline was a big deal. If lawmakers missed it, many state payments had to halt, including to state workers.<\/p>\n

However, amid a long budget impasse in 2009 that saw state workers protesting at the Capitol, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled<\/a> that the federal Fair Labor Standards Act overrode state constitutional language that said most state funds couldn\u2019t be spent without an enacted budget.<\/p>\n

That meant state workers would no longer go unpaid. It was a relief for them, but also did away with one of the most potent disincentives for a late deal.<\/p>\n

Still, nonprofits, libraries, schools, counties, and many other recipients of state funds eventually suffer if an impasse stretches for months.<\/p>\n

After last year\u2019s impasse<\/a>, which dragged on until mid-November, public schools<\/a> across the commonwealth cut programs, spent down their reserves, or took out loans as the state failed to make billions in critical payments. The strain also extended to safety net programs like rape crisis centers<\/a>, nonprofits like those that run early childhood intervention programs<\/a>, and county-administered services such as foster care and homeless assistance<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Asked Tuesday what the biggest remaining sticking point in talks was, state House Appropriations Committee Chair Jordan Harris (D., Philadelphia) said of the Senate, \u201cThey\u2019re not here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey got on the highway,\u201d McClinton said.<\/p>\n

Stephen Caruso, Kate Huangpu, Jaxon White, and Ethan Young contributed reporting.<\/p>\n

BEFORE YOU GO\u2026 If you learned something from this article, pay it forward and contribute to Spotlight PA at spotlightpa.org\/donate<\/a>. Spotlight PA is funded by foundations and readers like you<\/a> who are committed to accountability journalism that gets results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit newsroom producing investigative and public-service journalism that holds power to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234668,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[222,8552,28,30,29,8553,2261],"class_list":["post-234667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-budget","tag-democratic-party-united-states","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-republican-party-united-states","tag-tax"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234667","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=234667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}