Gov. Josh Shapiro managed to convince House Democrats to pass a $45.5 billion state spending plan Wednesday night after vowing to veto his own proposal to use public money to fund private school vouchers.
Shapiro had previously used the promise of the school voucher program to bring Republicans to control the Senate to pass a budget that included several Democratic priorities. The about-face has angered conservatives who say Shapiro outfoxed them.
For that reason, this may not be the last word on this year’s budget drama.
Lawmakers still have to approve code invoices — complicated pieces of omnibus budget-enabling legislation that dictate state policy on things like taxes, spending and education.
And, in a potentially more immediate problem, the Pennsylvania Constitution requires the speakers of each house to sign off on all bills before they head to the governor’s desk. This is usually routine. However, the state Senate, now upset by Shapiro’s reversal on vouchers, is not scheduled to return to Harrisburg until September.
In a statement, Senate Republican leaders Kim Ward (R., Westmoreland) and Joe Pittman (R., Armstrong) said Shapiro had “decided to betray the good faith agreement we reached.”
They add that “the general credit bill is not the final step in the budget process. The Senate will continue to await legislative action from the House on the remaining budget components, to see what House Democrats, with the bare minimum majority, can advance.”
House Democrats aligned themselves with Shapiro’s spending plan after he went public Wednesday with a pledge to eliminate the voucher proposal he previously supported: a $100 million program for scholarships for students from “low-performing” public school districts to attend private schools. The governor said the measure was needed to end the budget impasse and noted that House Democrats could likely block the program through code bills anyway.
“Knowing that the two chambers will not reach a consensus at this time to enact [the voucher program]and I do not want to halt our entire budget process on this issue, I will veto the entire $100 million appropriation and it will not be part of this budget bill,” Shapiro wrote.
Speaking from the floor before the chamber approved the spending plan 117 to 86House Democratic Leader Matt Bradford (D., Montgomery) congratulated members for avoiding a long impasse and showing “that bipartisanship is possible.”
The voucher program, known as the Pennsylvania Award for Student Success (or PASS), was a priority for leaders in the Republican-controlled Senate, who only agreed to spend more money on Democratic proposals in exchange for it .
Senate Republicans have said nothing publicly since Shapiro announced he would change course.
But his investment effectively removed the caucus from budget talks. The main recourse members of the Legislature have against a line veto is an override of the veto, which requires a two-thirds vote in each chamber and would be unlikely in this case.
While Senate Republican leaders have remained mum, rank-and-file Republicans in both chambers expressed public and private displeasure with the deal.
“That would be incredibly short-sighted [Shapiro] and I would see that as a sign that he negotiated in bad faith with the Senate,” says Sen. Jarrett Coleman (R., Bucks) he tweeted Wednesday afternoon of the prospect of a veto of the departure voucher.
Speaking from the floor of the chamber, state House Minority Appropriations Committee Chairman Seth Grove (R., York) said Wednesday night: “How can we trust anything that he says anyone in this body?”
Conservative groups echoed similar sentiments. Commonwealth Partners, which has been one of the most active groups in Pennsylvania lobbying for the vouchers, released a statement from CEO Matt Brouillette saying Shapiro “reneged on his word to the people of Pennsylvania.”
Keystone Forward, another free-market group, called Shapiro’s maneuver “a stunning double-cross.”
The budget being prepared before Shapiro represents a roughly 5 percent spending increase over last year’s enacted plan, and much of that goes to education, including $567 million in financing K-12 education. The plan also includes several Democratic priorities, including universal free school breakfast, $100 million in supplemental spending for poorer school districts, and the Commonwealth’s first funding for public legal defense.
However, it still allocates far less money to public education that House Democrats had initially sought. Caucus leaders have said they believe Pennsylvania needs to invest more in education next a state judge ruled that the commonwealth’s education system is unconstitutionally unequal and must be fixed.
The commonwealth has roughly $12 billion on hand, which lawmakers will be able to use to balance increased spending. Throughout the budget talks, Democrats had pushed to spend more of that money on education, while Republicans, worried about an economic recession, advocated saving much of it to avoid future budget deficits.
Along with the not-yet-passed code bills, the Legislature must move an annual state tuition subsidy for Pennsylvania’s four state-affiliated universities. That $600 million is unique in that it requires approval by a two-thirds majority of the legislature, meaning the funding is easy for dissenters to block. That’s according to the House Freedom Caucus, a group of conservative members specifically aims to withhold funding for Penn State. Votes to pass school funding failed by double-digit margins last month.
The final resolution of this year’s budget won’t end the voucher discussions in Harrisburg.
In his statement Wednesday, Shapiro said that as a condition of removing vouchers from the budget bill, he had received a promise from House Majority Leader Matt Bradford (D., Montgomery) that the chamber would consider programs of alternative school funding in the future.
“Leader Bradford has given me his word, and he has written a letter directly explaining to Leader Pittman that he will carefully review and consider additional education options,” Shapiro said in a statement Wednesday afternoon.
In the letter, Bradford said that while there was not “sufficient time to meaningfully review and examine the voucher proposal” as part of the state budget, he plans to direct House Appropriations Chairman Jordan Harris (D., Philadelphia) and Education Chairman Pete Schweyer (D., Lehigh) to hold hearings exploring it.
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