Pennsylvania is still far away from a state budget after House votes down transit funding and spending bills

HARRISBURG — The Pennsylvania House on Wednesday effectively killed two bills for mass transit and overall spending — signaling that the state’s divided legislature remains at a stalemate over a budget on the eve of SEPTA’s funding deadline for enacting major service cuts.

The rift between House Democrats and Senate Republicans was never clearer than on Wednesday, as two House committees voted down the bills passed Tuesday evening by the Senate — a $47.6 billion, flat-funding spending measure for the 2025-26 fiscal year, and a separate two-year, $1.2 billion plan to use mass transit capital funds and some gaming revenues to pay for transit operating costs and bridge and road repairs.

The two committee votes, with Democrats in opposition and Republicans in support, prevented either proposal from getting a vote before the full House. The committees can vote to reconsider the Senate measures later, though that is unlikely without major changes to each bill.

House Democratic leaders, who sent a $50.6 billion spending bill to the Senate last month, balked at the Senate’s flat-funding state budget and transit bill, arguing that both proposals do not address the issues the state and mass transit face.

» READ MORE: SEPTA cuts are moving forward, GM Scott Sauer says

On mass transit, Democrats maintained that using capital funds kept in the Public Transportation Trust Fund, a special fund with more than $2.2 billion currently, was a nonstarter. That opinion is shared by top officials at SEPTA and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, who testified before the House Rules Committee on Wednesday. And House leaders said the Senate’s overall spending bill was not even a short-term solution they could consider, as the state budget is seven weeks overdue and schools and counties deserve to know how much money they will receive for the entire fiscal year.

“It’s August the 13th,” said House Majority Appropriations Chairman Jordan Harris (D., Philadelphia). “We could have amended this budget and sent it back with the same thing we sent before, but we are not looking at ping-ponging bills back and forth. … The people of the commonwealth want and need a spending plan, and we intend to get them one.”

However, as far apart as the two chambers appeared, House Majority Leader Matt Bradford (D., Montgomery) said the latest actions from the Senate show an agreement among the legislature that there is an urgent need to fund mass transit that the Senate has never formally acknowledged in a vote before.

“It’s a step forward,” Bradford told reporters after the House Rules Committee voted down the Senate’s mass transit bill. “The Senate, for eight weeks, had not passed a budget, had not passed transit funding. Now we can see that the Senate has at least recognized the challenge in front of us.”

Bradford, Shapiro, and Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R., Indiana) continued budget negotiations behind closed doors Wednesday, as SEPTA neared its Thursday funding deadline. Shapiro told reporters in Centre County on Wednesday he met individually with both leaders, including with Pittman for two hours on Wednesday morning.

“I would not say that we’re far apart,” Shapiro said. “We’re making progress. I actually thought that the move yesterday in the Senate brought us closer, because what it did was it made clear that the Senate is committed to funding mass transit.”

SEPTA officials said they needed state funding by Thursday to avert 20% service cuts beginning Aug. 24, just before the first day of school for students in the Philadelphia School District.

During a House Rules Committee meeting Wednesday, SEPTA general manager Scott Sauer said that the impending cuts will move forward, and that the transit agency remains opposed to pulling from its already-needed capital funds for operations.

Schools, counties, and other government-subsidized services have all been waiting since the July 1 start of the 2025-26 fiscal year to receive their state payments, as the dollars will sit in the state treasury until the General Assembly and Shapiro approve a balanced budget. Schools and counties already began finding additional financing last month in the absence of state funding.

» READ MORE: Philly schools are paying the price of a late state budget

Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward (R., Westmoreland), the top Republican in the chamber, said in an interview Wednesday morning ahead of the House action that Democrats have a responsibility to consider the Senate’s flat-funding proposal or, at least, get some of the necessary funds flowing before the start of the school year.

“If they just vote this down and say ‘no,’ what that means is that when schools don’t get funded, and hospitals and all those other vital, essential entities — that sits squarely on the Democrats’ shoulders if they’re just gonna shut the conversation off,” Ward said.

Pittman, who has previously opposed funding increases for SEPTA, citing the agency’s management, said in an interview Tuesday that the Senate’s spending plan could be renegotiated to include additional funding if passed now.

“We certainly do not believe that what we passed today is the end of the conversations on the bigger issues that remain outstanding,” Pittman added. Those larger, unresolved issues include regulating and taxing slot-machine look-alikes called skill games that currently have no state oversight to generate additional state revenue, he said.

» READ MORE: Taxing skill games could help fund SEPTA. Here’s what to know.

However, Pittman would not say whether the Senate had the votes for a budget of more than $47.6 billion — a question Bradford has repeatedly asked as the two work with Shapiro to reach a deal. Pittman said he would not speculate on whether the Senate would come back to approve additional overall budget spending above $47.6 billion without seeing a full budget agreement between top lawmakers. At least one member of Pittman’s Republican caucus, which has a three-seat advantage in the 50-person Senate, has vowed publicly not to vote for any budget bill higher than last year’s total.

But Pittman, the Senate Republican leader, bristled when asked about what his chamber can pass in the state’s split legislature.

“Let Leader Bradford count his votes, and I’ll count mine,” Pittman said.