Senator Joe Pittman says he has “engaged in conversations with the governor, and …there is a mutual understanding that we need to find a way to move forward” on the deadlocked state budget. The state is now more than three weeks overdue on the budget after Governor Shapiro reneged on his agreement to support a $100 million school voucher plan, essentially in return for $300 million in Democratic Party priorities. Until an agreement is reached, Republican State Treasurer Stacy Garrity decides which of the state’s bills get paid and which do not.
Pittman says that there is still a “good amount of work that needs to be done to have a full and complete budget” with multiple pieces of legislation that have to be passed in order for a budget to go into effect. The situation, he says, is complicated by the resignation of a Democratic House member this week, which creates a 101-101 split in the House.
House Democrat Leader Matt Bradford wrote in an editorial this week that a budget has been passed in both chambers, ignoring the fact that Shapiro is using the line item veto to cross out the school voucher plan. Bradford says the Senate just has to return to Harrisburg and sign it.
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