Lawmakers to miss budget deadline, but don’t expect lengthy impasse

There’s confidence that the process can be wrapped up in early July.

By TOM FONTAINE
TribLive

Pennsylvania’s state government is expected to start the new fiscal year Tuesday without a spending plan in place.

That’s not unusual. The state budget has been adopted by the statutory June 30 deadline just eight times in the past 21 years.

Legislative leaders say they are confident this budget impasse won’t drag on for many weeks or months as has happened in the past.

“I don’t believe it’s going to be weeks long or months long,” Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa, D-Forest Hills, said of the ongoing budget negotiations. “I think it’s going to be a matter of days.”

“While the current conversations are bumpy at this very moment … we will figure out a path forward and try to deliver the best product we can for the people of Pennsylvania,” Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman, R-Indiana, said in an interview with Pennsylvania Cable Network.

The $51.5 billion budget proposed by Gov. Josh Shapiro in February would increase spending by 8% over this year’s budget and rely on using $4.5 billion in reserves to balance. The state has about $11 billion in reserves now.

“We’re in a very precarious fiscal situation,” Pittman said. “While we have a surplus and a rainy-day fund, those are all one-time dollars. If we don’t start right-sizing our expenditures to match our revenues, we’re going to have a fiscal calamity in a few short years.”

Keys aspects of the ongoing budget debate include what to do about:

• Shapiro’s request to boost state spending for Medicaid by more than $2 billion and increase education funding by $800 million.

• A recently approved House bill that would increase spending for transit agencies, including Pittsburgh Regional Transit, by nearly $300 million and provide another $500 million for road and bridge repairs.

• Agreeing on a way to regulate and tax the exploding number of video gambling machines in bars, convenience stores, parlors and other places of business.

Debate also has swirled around legalizing cannabis for recreational adult use, which Shapiro included in his proposed budget as a source of $500 million in revenue. A proposal to allow the sale of recreational cannabis at state-owned stores passed the House in May but was shot down in the Senate.

“That would be a big lift. It’s a complicated issue,” Dan Mallinson, associate professor of public policy and ad- BUDGET •A2

“I don’t believe it’s going to be weeks long or months long. I think it’s going to be a matter of days.”

JAY COSTA

SENATE MINORITY LEADER ministration at Penn State Harrisburg, said of lawmakers being able to agree on an alternative proposal in time to incorporate it into the coming-year budget.

Pittman ruled it out. “It is not,” Pittman told PCN when asked whether cannabis legalization was being considered as part of the budget talks. “Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the House Democrats took a very serious issue and sent us a very unserious proposal as it relates to legalizing and regulating recreational marijuana. So they’ve taken the issue multiple steps back.

“I don’t see any way that we come to a resolution on that issue, certainly this year.”

Another major question is how potential federal budget cuts to Medicaid and other programs would impact Pennsylvania. Federal funding accounts for about 40% of the state’s overall spending.

“At this point in time, the federal government in Washington, D.C., is going to do what it’s going to do,” Pittman said. “When they actually pass of piece of legislation and President Trump signs it into law, whatever that may be, we will deal with it, and we will adapt accordingly.”