The Pennsylvania Legislature is set to vote tonight on a $47.6 billion spending package that would augment spending by 6.2% and provide more money for public schools, state college students and social services.
The spending plan, which is about $700 million less than Gov. Josh Shapiro’s proposed budget, also includes funding for several of his signature initiatives. They include a program to develop construction-ready industrial sites to attract novel businesses and increased funding for public transit.
It compromises on a plan by House Democrats to augment funding for the state’s poorest school districts in response to a court ruling that found Pennsylvania’s public education funding system is unconstitutional.
State Rep. Mike Sturla (D-Lancaster), who served as chairman of the bipartisan committee that developed the plan, said that while the amount is lower than what Shapiro and House Democrats requested, he is pleased with the amount of novel funding for public schools.
“It’s not heaven, but it’s not hell,” Sturla said in an interview, adding that “there’s a lot more good than bad.”
Shapiro told the Capital-Star on Thursday afternoon that he was sanguine about the budget votes but declined to discuss the compromises that were made to reach an agreement between Senate Republicans and House Democrats, who control their chambers.
“I’m really proud of how well everyone has worked together in the only divided legislature in the country. People are working well together and we’ll see the results. Hopefully very soon,” Shapiro said in a brief interview.
The House Appropriations Committee passed four spending bills, sending them to the full House for a vote. Under House rules, a vote cannot take place until six hours after the committee vote and is expected to take place Thursday evening.
The bills must pass the House of Representatives and the Senate before they go to Shapiro for his signature.
Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee voted against the overall appropriations bill, which includes specific amounts allocated to each state program, department or agency. Rep. Seth Grove (R-York), the GOP budget chairman, said he believes the plan spends too much money, including the state’s $15 billion surplus.
“I think a significant portion of House Republicans will oppose this bill,” Grove said, adding that related bills instructing state agencies how to spend the money are also likely to face GOP opposition.
The budget allocates more than $500 million to close the funding gap between wealthier school districts that meet the state’s educational goals and districts with higher poverty, more English-speaking students and higher taxes.
But Sturla is unhappy with the poverty rate data that will be used to distribute those funds. Instead of using the numbers the state Department of Education gets from public benefit enrollment data, the budget directs the state to apply census data to determine poverty levels in individual school districts. Sturla believes the census data will be less true.
“Historically, censuses undercount the number of poor people,” Sturla said.
Sturla said he was also unhappy with changes to the plan’s proposal to set a statewide tuition rate for cyber charter schools, which are funded through a statewide tuition rate. School districts must pay cyber charters the same tuition they pay brick-and-mortar schools, resulting in what public education advocates call huge profits that are spent with little oversight.
Instead, the budget will reimburse school districts for a portion of the tuition they pay to online schools.
Sturla also criticized the novel requirement for every school district to hire security guards, saying the money could be better spent on educational programs in struggling schools.
“There’s only one thing in the Constitution,” Sturla said. “If I don’t pave the way, if I don’t give another tax break, if I don’t do something for corporations… If I don’t do any of those things, nobody can sue me and say I’m violating the Constitution. The only thing somebody can sue me for—and somebody did, by the way—is not funding education in an adequate and fair way.”
Grove said he expects GOP lawmakers to vote on a number of higher education measures, including almost 500 million dollars for the University of Pittsburgh and Penn State, Temple and Lincoln. Funding for state universities requires a two-thirds majority in each chamber because of restricted state oversight of these institutions.
Grove said Republican support would likely be contingent on the bill’s passage. expand scholarships for students of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education and establish a state Council of Higher Education that would apply performance metrics to allocate funding to state universities.
