$27B budget sent to Corbett

HARRISBURG - The state's $27.65 billion budget is on its way to Gov. Corbett for his signature, but the legislature is still engaged in a mad dash to complete related bills before the start of the new fiscal year Sunday.

The Senate gave final approval, 32-17, Friday to the budget deal negotiated this month by Corbett and Republicans who control both legislative chambers.

But to claim an on-time budget, legislators must also approve changes to a number of related bills, including the school, tax, and welfare codes. As a result, both chambers spent much of Friday in legislative lockdown and have scheduled sessions for Saturday to complete their work.

Even in the frenzy of the last-minute activity, legislators found time to slip in measures near and dear to them.

For instance, lawmakers from the Philadelphia suburbs raised more than a few eyebrows when it became known they had pushed for a moratorium, until 2018, on drilling in the untapped South Newark Basin natural-gas reservoir. The reservoir lies below much of Bucks County as well as other portions of Southeastern Pennsylvania.

The legislators would not explain their motivation. But critics quickly pounced on the moratorium, calling it an attempt to curry political favor with constituents in the Southeast who are angry at some of the provisions in the state's new fee on natural-gas extraction in the Marcellus Shale.

Such eleventh-hour maneuvering is nothing new in the Capitol, particularly during budget time. But it added to the harried atmosphere as lawmakers labored to keep up with the crush of bills before them.

Passing the main spending bill might have been the least complicated piece of the budget activity Friday.

Republicans lauded it as a responsible fiscal blueprint that reins in spending and does not raise taxes. Democrats have painted it as a heartless list of priorities that benefits big business and hurts the needy.

"It's another example of the underdog and the little guy taking another body shot," said Sen. Mike Stack (D., Phila.).

The negotiated budget agreement contains no new taxes - in keeping with Corbett's campaign pledge - and increases spending about 1.5 percent over this year's plan.

Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R., Delaware) said Friday: "The budget before us today is responsible and sustainable."

Public schools, for the most part, are flat-funded, as are the four state-related universities, including Temple and Lincoln, and the 14 schools in the State System of Higher Education.

The budget does contain nearly $300 million in tax cuts for businesses, and the agreement negotiated by Corbett and GOP legislative leaders also calls for a tax credit to entice Shell Chemical L.P. to build a huge petrochemical refinery in Western Pennsylvania.

In the cuts column: The budget slices $84 million for an array of human-services programs for the mentally ill, the homeless, and people fighting alcohol and drug addictions.

The budget deal also eliminates a cash-assistance program that helps nearly 70,000 people, including the temporarily disabled, victims of domestic abuse, and recovering addicts.

Originally, those people would have lost the benefits starting Sunday, but the Corbett administration agreed Friday to delay the program's elimination by a month, until Aug. 1, to ensure that recipients are properly notified.

"It's very cruel to end a program like this without proper notice," said Sen. Vincent Hughes (D., Phila.), the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee.

The fate of other legislation related to the budget appeared less certain.

Corbett was meeting with legislative leaders Friday night to try to work out differences on a bill he wants that would give the state a larger role in regulating charter schools.

The governor had wanted to create a state commission to authorize new charter schools, taking that power from local school boards. A tentative compromise struck earlier in the week would have limited that commission's powers, leaving local boards in charge of approving new charters while giving the state commission the authority to oversee appeals of charters rejected by the local boards.

That compromise appeared to be in jeopardy Friday evening.

Also up in the air: Corbett's push to expand from $75 million to $100 million the Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC), which gives tax breaks to businesses that provide scholarship aid to low- to middle-income students, as well as a plan to create a similar pot of money under the EITC umbrella that would target scholarship aid to pupils in the worst-performing schools.

One education-related bill that both chambers have passed and that awaits Corbett's signature involves establishing a process to identify and deal with distressed schools.

That process could include the appointment of an outside overseer to develop a recovery plan for a district, or a court-appointed receiver who would take over most of a school board's powers.