The end of July and beginning of August are here, marking one month since the General Assembly’s deadline for adopting a state budget. Several lawmakers representing Northeastern Pennsylvania weighed in on the impasse after a roundtable discussion on economic growth Wednesday.
Sen. Lisa Baker, R-20, Lehman Twp., said the state House and Senate leadership were still in negotiations with the governor’s office about the budget and that legislators were prepared to return if a deal were to be reached.
“As we reach the month of August, it’s a critical juncture,” Baker said.
Rep. James Haddock said he was frustrated by the slow pace of negotiations and the resulting failure to meet the state budget deadline. He said there was currently “no timeframe” for passing a budget.
“This should have been done June 30,” said Haddock, D-118, Pittston Twp. “It’s the height of hypocrisy that people who made the law that said the budget should be passed June 30 are going later with this.”
With negotiations ongoing, Baker said one point of contention was education funding. She said her priority was to send more state support to rural school districts, which have not benefited from new state adequacy funding (i.e. education funding allocated to certain at-need school districts pursuant to the seminal 2023 Commonwealth Court ruling on education equity).
“Just driving more money out and impacting negatively on our small, rural schools, that’s a major concern for me,” Baker said.
Several rural school districts in the Wyoming Valley have lamented the paucity of state funds sent to their districts and lack of adequacy aid. Two school districts in Luzerne County, Lake-Lehman and Northwest Area, were set under the governor’s budget to receive no adequacy funding.
In light of rural funding, Baker said she wanted to see funding routed from the adequacy funding to basic-education funding, which distributes aid on a weighted, per-pupil basis.
“The basic-ed funding is more aligned with driving the dollars out at a greater proportion to help rural schools,” Baker said.
Gov. Josh Shapiro proposed in February a $51.5 billion state budget, which would amount to a 7.5% increase in state spending. It increases basic-education funding 0.92% to $8.23 billion and increases special-education funding 2.69% to $1.53 billion. The proposed budget also includes $526 million in adequacy funding to distribute to designated school districts. (The Commonwealth Court ruled adequacy funding was needed to compensate poorer schools for years of inadequate state funding, ultimately depriving students of their right to education under the Pennsylvania Constitution.)
Whether the General Assembly will keep all the education the governor’s proposed budget contains intact is a perennial source of anxiety for school districts, which are often required to adopt a district budget well before final funding decisions are made in Harrisburg.
Haddock noted the state House had delivered budget legislation to the Senate, which it has not acted on to make progress on the budget process. (The House and governor’s office are currently controlled by Democrats, while the Senate is controlled by Republicans).
“They should send over their budget bill and then we know where we can negotiate from,” Haddock said.
Haddock added that the Senate was stalling even as he and his House colleagues had already worked to moderate its position. He noted the state House had already sent a budget proposal to the Senate that cut around $1 billion from the governor’s proposal.
“We put the hard votes up,” Haddock said.
Baker said she was concerned about organizations that are funded principally through state funding and could suffer the consequences of the General Assembly deadlock “in the very near term.”
“It would be my goal that a resolution would be forthcoming,” Baker said.
Haddock said he was concerned for those state-dependent organizations as well. He warned certain service industries and nursing homes could begin to “feel the pinch right away.”
“That will get people’s attention in Harrisburg,” Haddock said. “Then there’s going to be a public outcry to get the Senate to send over some bills.”
Baker said she has proposed a stop-gap budget to temporarily keep funding at last year’s levels to at least help ensure groups that depend on state aid are not left entirely without needed support.
“There are solutions potentially out there if we can’t reach an agreement on the final spend number, or how to allocate the dollars,” Baker said. “There are options available.”