Pa. House returns to approve fiscal code

HARRISBURG - They came, they voted, they left.

So it went Monday in the Capitol, where the 203-member state House made a rare midsummer return to vote on a small but critical part of the state budget: the fiscal code, which had been in legislative limbo for two weeks because of a dispute between the two chambers of the legislature.

Actually, not all House members came and voted. A check of the roll call revealed that 15 of 203 state representatives did not show up for the voting session. Three Philadelphia legislators were absent, notwithstanding the fact that the fiscal-code bill contained language critical to the rescue plan for the city's schools.

With little debate, those members who did show up approved the fiscal code by a 103-85 vote, roughly along party lines, with the chamber's Republican majority voting yes and Democrats voting no.

The bill contains a key piece of the financial rescue plan that city, state, and federal officials have crafted to help Philadelphia public schools: a onetime, $45 million state grant.

"We are pleased that the Pennsylvania House of Representatives finalized a critical component of the budget process," Philadelphia School Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. and Pedro Ramos, chairman of the School Reform Commission, said Monday in a joint statement.

"As we have stated throughout this process, much more work remains in order to ensure sufficient recurring funds and affordable spending levels that will allow us to provide all students with a safe, high-quality education," Hite and Ramos said. "We are committed to continuing our work with elected officials and our labor partners to direct every possible dollar to students and classrooms."

The $45 million stems from the federal government's recent decision to forgive the interest and penalties on a long-standing $140 million debt the state owes the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for past overpayment of federal funds for adoption and foster care.

Gov. Corbett has pledged to give that $45 million to the city for its public schools - provided the state education secretary finds that the district is implementing reforms and obtaining union concessions for "fiscal stability, educational improvement, and operational controls."

Corbett has stressed that he favors major concessions from the district's unions as part of any financial rescue, and has praised Hite for taking a similar stance.

The onetime state grant would help whittle away at the school district's $304 million shortfall that triggered the layoffs of 3,859 employees, most of them teachers, on June 30.

According to the roll call vote, 188 of the House's 203 legislators showed up for Monday's voting session.

Among those recorded as absent: Reps. Dwight Evans (D., Phila.), Pamela DeLissio (D., Phila.), Brian Sims (D., Phila.), Joseph T. Hackett (R., Delaware), Nick Miccarelli (R., Delaware) and Katharine M. Watson (R., Bucks).

At the end of last week, when the House announced that it would convene Monday for the vote, House GOP spokesman Steve Miskin said the "logistics" of getting members back from vacations or other plans had made it difficult to schedule the session sooner.

The fiscal code had been caught in an impasse at the eleventh hour as legislators raced to meet the June 30 deadline for approving the annual budget for the fiscal year that began July 1.

The problem: The House, at the last minute, slipped a controversial provision into the code that could allow payday lenders - who provide short-term, high-interest loans, typically to low-income borrowers - to resume operations in the state.

After voting on that and several other bills in the first week of July, House members broke for the summer.

But the GOP-controlled Senate came in the next day and stripped out the payday-lending language, sending the bill back to the House. Then, the Senate, too, began its summer break - and the fiscal code was left dangling.

During Monday's brief debate on the bill, Rep. Joe Markosek (D., Allegheny) argued that without the fiscal code being approved by July 1, the Corbett administration and the legislature could not claim to have delivered an on-time budget.

"It's time to fess up," said Markosek, the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee. "You're late. The budget is not on time."