Two of the three state senators representing Butler County backed a House-authored state budget bill passed by the Senate on Wednesday, but acknowledged that questions remain about how the state will pay for its increased costs.

Sen. Don White, R-41st, said the budget doesn’t address the state’s fiscal crisis — an estimated structural budget deficit of $1.8 billion to $2 billion.

He added that he also was concerned about hundreds of millions of dollars in rising mandatory pension system contributions, as well as increased spending for the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, which will get $150 million more under the House’s plan.

About $1.1 billion of the $1.5 billion spending increase in the House’s $31.5 billion budget goes to the Department of Human Services. White said he was pleased that the spending plan eschewed a $2.7 billion package of broad-based tax increases initially proposed in February by Gov. Tom Wolf. But he sees the budget as merely delaying the inevitable.

“I’ll be stunned if we don’t have to” enact tax increases in next year’s budget, White said.

In an e-mail message, Sen. Elder Vogel, R-47th, called the House’s plan “balanced” and said it restores funding for agricultural programs, allocates new money to fight the state’s opioid epidemic, and funnels hundreds of millions of dollars into education.

“(The budget) supports the core functions of government and allocates $245 million in new funding for basic education, special education, and Pre-K Counts without the need for increased personal income taxes or sales tax,” said Vogel.

But questions remained over where the money would come from. Revenue projections for the House’s budget weren’t clear on Wednesday as Republican leaders in the House projected a $1 billion revenue increase based on a package of tobacco taxes that hadn’t yet been released. Increased receipts from privatizing the state’s wine sales and a dramatic gambling expansion — essentially making Pennsylvania the fourth state to legalize Internet gambling — are also major parts of revenue projections from the House.

Critics of the House budget, including Wolf, have called the plan “unbalanced,”

White said Senate Appropriations Chairman Pat Brown “seems confident,” in the revenue projections, but acknowledged that he wasn’t sure if the projections of gambling revenue would prove accurate.

“I don’t know. I don’t have a crystal ball,” White said. “I just know we need new revenues.”

White said the Senate was prepared to remain in session at least through Friday, as negotiations over the budget continue. Neither the Senate nor Gov. Wolf had proposed alternatives to the House plan as of this morning.

“Assuming things don’t blow up, they’ll be chess pieces moving around,” White said.

State Rep. Jeff Pyle, R-60th, the secretary of the House’s Appropriations Committee, said the House was required to let the Senate’s version of the bill “sunshine” for 24 hours before taking any action on it, but expressed optimism about meeting the Friday deadline to have a budget in place. The overwhelming bipartisan support the House plan received in the Senate on Wednesday has been called a tacit indication that Wolf supports the budget.

“I think this one he (Wolf) does sign,” Pyle said. “Everybody I talked to on the Democratic side said ‘we’re not coming in late.’”

State Sen. Scott Hutchinson, R-21st, who was one of three senators to vote against the budget bill Wednesday, did not return messages left seeking comment on the budget.