Pennsylvania’s Republican-controlled Senate reconvened Wednesday for an unusual August session mired in a two-month budget stalemate with the Democratic-controlled House.
Two budget-related bills passed, mainly along party lines, while Senate Republicans advanced a mix of provisions that had bipartisan support and others that did not.
Neither bill has the agreement of House Democratic leaders. The House is not scheduled to reconvene until after a special election on Sept. 19 that is expected to restore the chamber’s one-seat Democratic majority.
Lawmakers in early July passed the main spending bill in a $45 billion budget package, but it only made it to the desk of Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro after a partisan battle over creating a new $100 million program to send students to private schools.
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That left some programs in limbo, with money approved for them, but no accompanying legislation explaining how the money would be distributed.
Some of the bipartisan provisions approved Wednesday would increase insurance payments to ambulance squads, increase Medicaid payments for nursing homes and reauthorize court filing fees that help fund the local court.
The Pennsylvania state Capitol can be seen on Dec. 14, 2020, in Harrisburg. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)
Another updates an assessment that distributes more than $1 billion annually to hospitals in federal funds.
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Some provisions allow the distribution of hundreds of millions of dollars to various programs and institutions, including one that Democrats seek to fund universal free school breakfasts in public schools.
The law also includes an additional $75 million in tax credits — up to $480 million annually — in exchange for business donations, mainly to private schools, and it imposes a two-year tuition freeze on universities that -owned by the state of Pennsylvania.
Nearly every Democrat opposed the bills, which Republicans say would have allocated $100 million to the poorest public schools, millions for lawyers to represent indigent defendants and subsidies for those who would student-teachers to help recruit more teachers.
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Also in limbo are the hundreds of millions of dollars the state typically sends each year to Penn State, the University of Pittsburgh and Temple University to subsidize in-state tuition. It is handled by a group of Republican lawmakers.
