House Appropriations Committee Chairperson Jordan Harris (D-Philadelphia) speaks to reporters after a vote on budget legislation Thursday, July 11, 2024. (Capital-Star photo by Peter Hall)
The Pennsylvania Legislature is set to vote on a $47.6 billion budget package later today representing a 6.2% increase in spending that would provide more money for public schools, students attending state colleges and human services.
The spending plan, which is about $700 million less that Gov. Josh Shapiro’s proposed budget, also includes funding for several of his marquee initiatives. They include a program to develop shovel-ready industrial sites to attract new businesses and a funding increase for public transit.
It includes compromises on the House Democrats’ plan to increase funding for the state’s poorer school districts in response to a court ruling that Pennsylvania’s system for funding public education was unconstitutional.
State Rep. Mike Sturla (D-Lancaster) who served as chairman of a bipartisan commission that developed the plan said although the amount is less that Shapiro and House Democrats sought, he’s satisfied with the amount of new funding for public schools.
“It’s not heaven, but it’s not hell,” Sturla said, adding in an interview that “there is far more good than bad.”
Shapiro told the Capital-Star on Thursday afternoon that he was feeling optimistic about votes on the budget but he declined to discuss what compromises had been made to achieve an agreement between Senate Republicans and House Democrats, who control their respective chambers.
“I’m really proud of how well everybody’s worked together in the only divided legislature in the entire country. People work together well, and we’ll see the product of that. Hopefully real soon,” Shapiro said in a brief interview.
The House Appropriations Committee passed four budget bills, sending them to the full House for votes. Under House rules, the vote cannot be held for six hours after the committee vote and is expected to happen Thursday evening.
The bills must pass in the House and Senate before going to Shapiro for his signature.
Republicans in the Appropriations Committee voted against the general appropriations bill, which contains the specific amounts allocated to each state program, department or agency. Rep. Seth Grove (R-York), the Republican caucus’s budget chief, said he believes the plan spends too much money, including a draw down of the state’s $15 billion surplus.
“I think there’ll be a large swath of House Republicans that will be a no on this bill,” Grove said, adding that related bills to instruct state agencies on how they can spend the money would likely also face GOP opposition.
The budget would provide more than $500 million toward closing a gap in funding between wealthier school districts that achieve the state’s educational goals and districts that have more poverty, more students who speak English as a second language, and that must tax their residents at a higher rate.
However, Sturla is unhappy with the data on poverty rates that will be used to distribute those funds. Instead of using numbers derived by the state Education Department from public benefit enrollment data, the budget directs the state to use census data to determine poverty levels in individual school districts. Sturla believes that the census data will be less accurate.
“The census numbers historically underreport poor people,” Sturla said.
Sturla said he’s also dissatisfied with changes to the plan’s proposal to set a statewide tuition rate for cyber charter schools that are funded by setting a statewide tuition rate. School districts must pay cyber charters the same tuition that they pay to brick and mortar charter schools, resulting in what public education advocates say are massive windfalls that are spent with little oversight.
Instead, the budget would reimburse school districts for a portion of the tuition they pay to cyber charters.
Sturla also took issue with a new mandate for each school district to hire security, money he said could have been better spent on education programs in struggling schools.
“There’s only one mandate that’s in the constitution,” Sturla said. “If I don’t pave another road, if I don’t give another tax break, if I don’t do something for a corporation … If I don’t do any of that stuff, no one can take me to court and say I’m in violation of the constitution. The only thing someone can take me to court for — and by the way somebody did — is not funding education in an adequate and equitable manner.”
Grove said he expects Republican lawmakers will vote for a slate of higher education measures, including nearly $500 million for the University of Pittsburgh and Penn State, Temple and Lincoln universities. Funding for the state-related universities requires the support of a two-thirds majority in each chamber because of the limited state oversight of those institutions.
That support from Republicans would likely be conditional, Grove said, upon the passage of bills to expand scholarships for students in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education and to establish a state Board of Higher Education that would use performance measures to allocate state-related university funding.
The post Pa. Legislature moves toward Thursday night vote on Gov. Shapiro’s second budget appeared first on Pennsylvania Capital-Star.