The Pennsylvania Capitol in Harrisburg, May 1, 2026. (Photo by Whitney Downard/Pennsylvania Capital-Star)
State lawmakers have just over 24 hours until the deadline to pass a spending plan for the next fiscal year on Tuesday at 11:59 p.m.
But as of Monday afternoon, few details had emerged from negotiations between Gov. Josh Shapiro and the majority leaders of Senate Republicans and House Democrats. And because Senate rules require that the bill that will ultimately contain the budget be read on three different days, the earliest the budget can be passed is Wednesday.
Shapiro’s spokesman addressed comments he made Friday at an event in Monroe County.
“There are no more excuses. The legislator has a legal obligation to show up, do his job and put the budget on my desk,” he said. “I think they should stay there until they get the budget on my desk. There’s no reason it can’t be done soon.”
The two chambers met Monday in Harrisburg, where closed-door negotiations continued between Shapiro and caucus leaders. A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman told the Capital-Star in response to questions about the status of negotiations: “budget discussions are still ongoing at this time.”
House passed legislation containing Shapiro’s budget proposal in April, although it had virtually no chance of getting through the GOP-majority Senate.
Senate Republican leaders then expressed “deep concerns about the proposed level of spending and the impact it would have on the state’s structural deficit.”
House Speaker Jordan Harris (R-Philadelphia), the chief architect of the House budget, told reporters on Monday that the chamber had repeatedly pushed for the spending plan to be fast-tracked before Tuesday’s deadline and criticized Senate Republicans for failing to come up with a counterproposal.
“We haven’t seen the state Senate budget yet,” Harris said. he added, “We are waiting for the Senate to tell us or show us what it can do.
Whether you immerse yourself in the state a rainy day fund worth almost $8 billion will be part of the discussion. Democrats point to slightly higher-than-expected revenues, supplemented by taxes on adult-use cannabis and skill games, as a reason to enhance spending.
The Senate took some action on Monday. The Appropriations Committee amended the House-passed budget bill, stripping out almost all of its provisions and effectively turning it into a blank slate.
This was a procedural move intended to get the legislation out of committee and allow it to be passed more quickly. Once negotiations are completed, it will be amended again to reflect the final agreement, although the bill could not be passed until Wednesday at the earliest.
Last year, budget negotiations dragged on for more than six months after the June 30 deadline and a spending plan was finally agreed ends in November.
That has prompted local governments and school districts across the state to cut services or borrow money to finance programs typically funded by the state.
Dow Jones News Fund reporting intern Emily Scolnick contributed to this story.
