by Peter Hall, The star of Pennsylvania’s capital
October 21, 2025
The state senate passed modern budget proposal of $47.9 billion on Tuesday, as Democrats warned of the consequences of underfunding schools and social safety net programs.
The vote on the party line took place on the 113th day after the June 30 deadline for adopting the spending plan. It also came nearly two weeks after the House passed a $50.25 billion proposal with bipartisan support.
Senate Republican leaders said the modern proposal meets their requirements of not imposing tax increases while fully funding the Commonwealth’s pension program and debt service. They argued that the proposal sets an example by including a 5% spending cut for the Legislature.
“One day and one vote. That’s all we need from House Democrats to end the Shapiro shutdown.” Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R-Indiana) said during the Senate debate. “The budget before us is a needs-based budget. It is not a wants-based budget.”
Governor Josh Shapiro The $51.6 billion proposal submitted in February also included no tax increases.
However, this required the legalization of recreational marijuana for adult exploit and the regulation and taxation of slot machine-like skill games that had become common in Pennsylvania and many other states. Shapiro’s office said the proposals would generate about $800 million in modern revenue.
Democrats sharply criticized the plan as “frivolous” and lacking compromise.
“This is a joke,” Shapiro told reporters after the Allegheny County event. “It doesn’t actually fulfill the responsibilities of this community. It’s a marketing gimmick that isn’t meant to be serious or fulfill its purpose.”
Senate President pro tempore Kim Ward (Westmoreland) said Shapiro is the reason for the budget delay, noting that this year’s budget is the third term of his administration.
“He failed to bring the parties together, so instead he flies around the state on taxpayers’ money, showing his face in front of cameras and pointing fingers. This is, in the governor’s words, ‘no way to get things done,'” Ward said.
Elżbieta Rementerpress spokesman House Majority Leader Matt Bradford (D-Montgomery) said Senate Republican leaders were unable to pass a budget that met the state’s needs because they were unable to rally support for such a plan among their caucus members.
“By their own admission, they need Democratic votes in the Senate to pass a real budget,” Rementer said in a statement. “They lack the courage to propose a real budget that would require bipartisan support from their chamber.”
Before the Senate voted 27 to 23, Minority Leader Jay Costa (D-Allegheny) advocated reinstating the proposal passed by the House on October 8. This was the Chamber’s response to the budget bill that the Senate first adopted in August.
Costa noted that the House plan included a $565 million enhance in funding for the state’s most underfunded schools, $1.3 billion in funding for the Department of Human Services and millions more for student scholarships, teacher grants and food banks.
The school funding enhance is intended to bring schools in the state’s less affluent communities up to the level of funding received by schools in the wealthiest communities. This was the solution selected by a non-partisan, inter-industry committee convened in response to a 2023 Commonwealth Court ruling that found the state’s reliance on property taxes to fund education was unconstitutional.
Spokesperson for Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Scott Martin (R-Lancaster) noted that the court “left all potential remedies to the legislative and executive branches and specified that changes to improve the system need not be financial in nature.”
The $565 million injection in the House proposal would be the second in a series of “matching funding” payments following a recommendation from the Commission on Basic Education Financing in its 2024 report adopted by an 8-7 majority vote, including all but one of the Democratic members and each of Shapiro’s three representatives. The committee was evenly split, with administration officials abstaining, on a competing proposal favored by GOP members that differed primarily in how it applied demographic data to the state’s basic education funding formula.
“There are a lot of other reasons why we shouldn’t support this,” Costa said of the Senate budget proposal. “We think this should be something that needs to be done in a bipartisan way – four leaders meeting with the administration, coming together and making sure that we can come up with the right budget to end this impasse.”
Minority Appropriations Committee Chairman Vincent Hughes (Philadelphia), noting that Pennsylvanians are suffering and the federal government is making it worse.
“We have a $3 billion operating surplus and $8 billion in a rainy day fund. We should be able to do it. It’s 113 days behind schedule. That doesn’t raise the bar,” Hughes said.
Hughes later added that additional money for underfunded schools would assist more than two-thirds of the state’s districts, many of which are in heavily Republican rural areas.
“You know, they say politics should be parochial. You’ve got to worry about your community,” Hughes said. “But you know, I’ve found that we often worry about people we don’t even represent because it seems like the people who represent them don’t want to take care of them.”
(This article was updated on Wednesday, October 22, 2025, to correct and include additional information on the Commonwealth Court’s school funding decision.)
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