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Pennsylvania’s $50.8 billion state budget passed Sunday with overwhelming bipartisan support, but two local Democratic state senators broke with Gov. Josh Shapiro and most of their party, arguing the spending plan sidesteps the commonwealth’s biggest long-term challenges.
State Sens. Nikil Saval, D-Philadelphia, and Katie Muth, D-Chester County, praised the budget’s investments in public education and other priorities. But the self-identified progressives said lawmakers failed to confront rising energy costs, affordable housing and public transportation funding.
At Sunday’s signing ceremony, Shapiro described the budget as another example of bipartisan compromise in a politically divided Harrisburg, saying lawmakers had once again found common ground despite significant differences.
Saval said he saw it differently.
“It’s not that it’s the result of major compromises,” Saval told WHYY News. “It seems to be the result of avoiding major issues, major policy issues. So actually what I think characterizes this budget is an avoidance of serious issues and serious concerns.”
Muth agreed, saying that she believes the compromises made by Democrats were “convenient” for party members who capitulated to avoid a major fight during Shapiro’s reelection year.
“Democrats are going to do, for the most part, what the governor says,” Muth said. “They’re not going to be critical. That’s a thing.”
Deferred priorities
Saval said one of his biggest frustrations was the absence of new funding for public transit, despite repeated warnings from transit agencies across Pennsylvania that service cuts are already underway or imminent without additional state support. Shapiro effectively punted questions over public transportation funding until next year.
“This was once again a budget that did not invest at all in public transit, which is especially galling after last year thousands of constituents made their voices heard across the commonwealth,” he said. “This affects tons and tons of people. So it’s not an issue that we should be deferring action on.”
Saval also criticized lawmakers for failing to advance affordable housing initiatives, including proposals supported by Shapiro.
“The governor proposed recently a housing action plan that would issue a $1 billion bond to fund critical infrastructure, including housing,” Saval said. He noted that the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress passed a bipartisan bill addressing housing last week.
“I think we ought to be responding to our constituents in the same way,” he said.
Muth agreed with Saval but cited additional issues that still remained unaddressed, including underfunded rape crisis centers and impending issues with the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, likely to arise from funding cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“PEMA’s 90% funded by FEMA,” she said. “Where are we getting that money? That’s like our PEMA operating on bare bones. So we don’t have fully funded fire and [emergency medical services], because everything’s volunteer and being bought up by private equity on the EMS side.”
