Gov. Shapiro, Pennsylvania counties, and ‘crisis pregnancy centers’: Who won and lost in the budget battle so far

HARRISBURG — It was a dramatic week in Pennsylvania’s state Capitol, with some elected leaders claiming they’ve been backstabbed and others taking a victory lap.

The House and Senate are now out of session for the foreseeable future — likely for the rest of the summer. Budget talks are still not complete, and the state is now at an impasse until the state’s leadership works it out.

While Pennsylvania’s top leaders point fingers about why a budget deal hasn’t come together, we took a look at what’s actually in the budget so far.

Here are some of the winners and losers who emerged this week as the state finalized its $45.5 billion spending plan.

Gov. Josh Shapiro, in his first budget negotiation since taking office in January, secured a lot of his budget priorities: all $700 million in new education funding he asked for, a first-time $7.5 million investment in Pennsylvania’s public defenders, universal free breakfast for public school students, $20 million for grants for historically disadvantaged business owners, and more.

“These investments will make a real difference in our students’ lives and peoples’ lives all across Pennsylvania,” Shapiro said during a press conference Thursday.

These are major wins for a governor’s first budget. Getting parts of his $44 billion budget proposal into a Senate GOP-sponsored spending bill shows his negotiating strengths.

However, getting these funding streams into the budget by itself is not enough — as he’s since found out. Senate Republicans can still hold up or entirely block these wins.

“Senate Republicans worked in good faith with Gov. Shapiro for nearly two months making concessions and giving him all the goodies he wanted with his promise to work with his party and bring [a private school voucher program] across the finish line,” said Kim Ward, the top Republican and president pro tempore of the state Senate (R., Westmoreland).

Shapiro said creating a state program for students to attend private schools using tax dollars is still a priority for him, even if it doesn’t happen now.

The top three Democratic leaders successfully protected their chamber from taking a potentially damaging vote about school vouchers. Though some Philadelphia Democratic members are open to voucher programs because kids attend failing schools in their districts, a budget funding vouchers would have cost Democratic leaders political capital with allies such as the teachers unions.

House Majority Leader Matt Bradford (D., Montgomery) was able to convince Shapiro to line-item veto the school voucher program under a promise to hold hearings this summer about creating a voucher program or expanding funding to two tax credit scholarship programs.

Teachers unions and pro-public education groups gave an outpouring of thanks to House Democrats. Democratic members were gracious to their leadership, who just took control of the chamber with a one-seat majority earlier this year.

The funding stream that sends state dollars to antiabortion groups that provide pregnant people with alternatives to abortion and services for mothers, got a 30% budget increase, which amounts to approximately $2 million.

Democrats and reproductive rights advocates have been trying for years to remove any state funding to “crisis pregnancy centers,” which they say pressure families out of pursuing an abortion. Instead, these organizations got a significant funding bump.

The state budget includes $50 million for a home repairs program championed by Sen. Nikil Saval (D., Philadelphia).

Saval spent last year organizing his supporters and selling his idea to his colleagues: Make grants available to residents to keep them in their homes. Otherwise, people may be living in unsafe conditions or are eventually forced to leave their homes with nowhere to go.

He secured $125 million last year for the Whole-Home Repairs program using federal COVID-19 relief dollars. The program will get another bump this year and could become an annual program in the future.

While Shapiro got what he wanted in the budget, it came at a steep cost. He upset the teachers unions and organized labor that supports them when he negotiated a private-school voucher program into the budget. He then betrayed Senate Republicans’ trust when he announced he’d veto the very program he helped create.

Shapiro will need to repair relationships with his Republican colleagues, who now question whether they can trust him at all. (Shapiro, for his part, has said they never had a final budget deal. Pennsylvania’s budget talks are in closed-door meetings, so it’s his word against theirs.)

Now the state will remain at a budget impasse, and the many hurt feelings will be for nothing.

But he’ll also need to mend his relationships with teachers unions, who backed his gubernatorial bid and were caught blindsided near the end of June when Shapiro took an active role in creating the school voucher program.

Shapiro’s national profile rose as he endorsed the vouchers — getting praise from the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board and appearing on Fox News. But as he turned his back on the issue, national conservative outlets turned theirs on him, with the Journal’s editorial board on Friday calling him a “sellout.”

The association representing Pennsylvania’s 67 counties, which are often the front line for the state’s most vulnerable residents, begged for more aid to support social services.

The County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania said $250 million of combined mental health funds are necessary to avoid a systemic collapse of counties’ mental health services.

They’ve also asked for the state to raise its 911 surcharge on Pennsylvania residents’ monthly phone bill.

The monthly surcharge generates funds to support counties’ 911 systems. Currently, residents pay a $1.65 flat rate each month to support their county’s system. Counties want to raise it to $2.30 per month so they can implement enhanced 911 systems.

None of these asks made it into the final spending bill. Lawmakers said they’d work on the issue in the fall.

Students at the University of Pittsburgh, Penn State, and Temple have their in-state tuition discount at risk.

The state House has now twice rejected sending $650 million in state funding to the three state-related schools. Both the House and Senate need to approve the funding with two-thirds of the chamber’s support. It fell just six votes short in the House on Thursday night.

House Republicans say they won’t support sending the schools more state funds until they get greater oversight of their records, tuition increases, and more. So students could be on the hook for thousands more than they expected in the fall.

The House already separately approved Lincoln University’s annual appropriation.