Overview
- The Senate passed the $47.9 billion plan 27–23, keeping overall spending essentially flat while boosting debt service and school pension payments and trimming the legislature’s budget by 5%.
- Gov. Josh Shapiro and Democratic leaders dismissed the proposal as unserious, with the House calling it not balanced for the year’s costs.
- Senate Republicans said the bill “pays the bills,” urged the House to pass it in one day with one vote, and argued against using reserves for recurring expenses.
- Democrats favor drawing from roughly $10 billion in state reserves and previously advanced a $50.25 billion House plan with higher education and Medicaid funding.
- The impasse has reached 113 days as about $10.1 billion in revenue sits unappropriated, with schools and counties taking loans or cutting services and one analysis estimating roughly $89,000 in daily inflows as a crude calculation.