HARRISBURG (TNS) — State Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward has called an unusual August voting session for next week to deal with unfinished pieces of the fiscal 2024 state budget.
Gov. Josh Shapiro on Aug. 3 signed a $45.45 billion spending bill that put in place mechanisms to carry out the vast majority of state spending. But because of partisan disagreements, the General Assembly did not pass accompanying legislation required to release the spending for a number of high-profile programs.
Ward, R-Westmoreland, and bearer of the responsibility for calling senators back to Harrisburg, said that the Senate would return Aug. 30 for “advancing the next steps” in the 2023-2024 budget process.
”These next steps will include funding for emergency medical services and hospital and health system relief,” Ward said. “Other matters will continue to be negotiated with our counterparts in good faith and in the best interests of Pennsylvanians.”
In a typical year in which a budget is completed on or close to schedule, lawmakers leave Harrisburg by early July and do not return until September. This year, friction between Democrats and Republicans increased at the June 30 fiscal year-end came and culminated July 5 with a split between Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro and Republicans who control the Senate. Some members of the chamber returned Aug. 3 for a brief non-voting session in which the already-passed spending bill received a necessary signature and was forwarded to Mr. Shapiro, who immediately signed it.
Plans for passing the accompanying enabling legislation that would free up spending on some items remained murky until Monday’s announcement by Ms. Ward. The enabling language is typically included in “code bills” which must be approved by the House and Senate and then signed by the governor.
House members are not scheduled to return to Harrisburg until Sept. 26. The chamber is led by Democrats, who lost their 102-101 voting majority in the chamber with the July 19 resignation of Sara Innamorato, D- Lawrenceville. An election to fill the vacant seat in heavily Democratic district is scheduled for Sept 19, but no new member can be seated until the results of that day’s voting are certified.
On Monday, though, a spokesperson for the House Democratic leader, Rep. Matt Bradford of Montgomery County, said an earlier return was possible.
”Discussions continue with Senate Republicans and the administration on a fiscal code,” said the spokesperson, Beth Rementer. “We are not foreclosing on the possibility that we may return sooner if an agreement is reached.”
Other items in this fiscal year’s spending plan that require further action by lawmakers include $10 million for a student teacher stipend program intended to help ease the teacher shortage; school mental health grants; Level Up funding for financially strapped school districts; the Whole-Home Repairs program; and criminal indigent defense.
On Monday, Sen. Vincent Hughes, D- Philadelphia and prime sponsor of a bill that would set up the stipend program, said he believed it was still possible to get it going this school year if lawmakers act on the necessary legislation soon.
He cited the reopening of I-95 in Philadelphia in June, less 2 weeks after a section of it collapsed in a fatal accident that led some to speculate the highway would be closed for months.
”It is clearly a crisis,” Mr. Hughes said of the teacher shortage. “I think it is certainly possible this year.”
}A Republican sponsor of the bill, Sen. Ryan Aument of Lancaster County, indicated the voting session next week might be an opportunity to move the proposed stipend program closer to an approval that would allow it to “help prospective teachers as early as the spring semester of 2024.”
”The student teacher stipend program in this year’s budget is critical not only for recruiting and retaining high-quality prospective teachers, but also to ensure that we’re quickly addressing the worsening teacher shortage,” Aument said.
The bill — which is identical to one that passed the House in June with bipartisan support — calls for the “Educator Pipeline Support Grant Program” to be run out of the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency. It would give grants with a minimum of $10,000 to qualifying student teachers.
Rementer, the spokesperson for House Democrats, said they “prioritized funding for student teacher stipends in the budget and strongly support the program finally being enacted.”
Shapiro has been a consistent supporter of the concept.
