Legislative Updates
🏛️ State Budget in Limbo as SEPTA Service at Risk
Although no official House or Senate sessions are scheduled until September, legislators remain on-call and can be summoned back to Harrisburg with 24 hours’ notice should a bipartisan agreement with the Governor be reached.
With the July 1 budget deadline now more than a month behind, Pennsylvania’s leaders remain deadlocked — and that impasse could bring SEPTA’s service perilously close to a 45% cut by late August. Democratic legislators and the governor are pressing Senate Republicans to approve mass‑transit funding before nearly 1 million Southeastern Pennsylvanians lose rides and 53,000 students have no way to school on August 25. The impasse is exposing broader structural challenges in negotiating the $5.5 billion budget gap.
📌 Read the full story: -> Inquirer.com -> AP News
We continue to keep a close eye on how much pressure lines will shift now that SEPTA has set a hard August deadline for service cuts. Legislators seem surgical: Democrats in the House have delivered multiple mass transit funding packages, including road‑and‑bridge trade‑offs, while unity among Senate Republicans is fraying—especially among senators from Philly, Bucks, and Montgomery counties. Each threatens to represent their constituents with signature accountability reforms tied to fare evasion and public‑private partnerships; yet those reforms come without the meat of funding. Inquirer.com
Governor Shapiro, House Speaker Joanna McClinton, and Majority Leader Bradford have publicly said: “We have done our part—it’s the Senate’s move.” Inquirer.com This is amid a statewide budget negotiation that includes tough decisions on Medicaid increases, school finance court mandates, and legalized skill‑games tax revenue—all while trying not to raise income or sales taxes.
- “What to Watch This Week”: Will Senate leadership bring mass-transit funding to a vote? Will the skill‑games legislation advance as a revenue rider? Will SEPTA extend the cut deadline?
🏫 At‑a‑Glance: Education & Broader Budget Impacts
| # | Takeaway |
|---|---|
| 1. $2.5 B in state aid is officially on hold | A letter from Budget Secretary Uri Monson warned of delayed payments over the next six weeks—approximately $2 billion for basic education, mostly monthly school aid, and about $540 million for human services, including child welfare funding. -> Inquirer.com. |
| 2. Operational delays for schools & counties | Districts must finalize budgets by June 30. Without state funds, poorer districts lack cushion and will likely borrow to stay solvent, with borrowing costs falling on local taxpayers. -> Spotlight PA. |
| 3. The stick behind the delay | Legislative gridlock centers on GOP resistance to Gov. Shapiro’s $51 billion+ spending plan, disputes over Medicaid cost-sharing, and competing revenue ideas: legalizing/revenue-sharing skill games vs. corporate tax increases. -> Spotlight PA. |
| 4. Pressure building in Philly & Harrisburg | Union leaders, including Philadelphia AFL‑CIO and Transport Workers Local 234, rallied in the city with the message to state Senate Republicans: “Do your job!” They demanded budget passage, SEPTA funding, and skill‑games regulation as a revenue lever. -> Inquirer.com. |
| 5. Next absorbing questions | Will Senate GOP lawmakers concede on education/transit at the Senate Appropriations table? Can skill‑games lawmakers—whose tax legislation still hasn't passed—find common ground? |
