HARRISBURG — Billions of dollars for Pennsylvania’s public schools and social services could soon start flowing after four-plus months of delay, as lawmakers on Wednesday approved key elements of a roughly $50 billion spending plan to break the state’s budget impasse.

A concession to help seal the deal meant Democrats agreed to Republican demands to undo a regulation aimed at making Pennsylvania the only major fossil fuel-producing state to force power plant owners to pay for their planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions.

Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro signed several key budget bills shortly after they passed, approving hundreds of pages of budget legislation that had barely been public for a few hours after weeks of closed-door negotiations.

In a Capitol news conference, Shapiro called it a “great budget” that came from negotiations with a politically divided Legislature where “we stayed at the table and we all stood up for the things that mattered most.”

Under the $50.1 billion no-new-taxes budget deal, new authorized spending would rise by about $2.4 billion, or 5%, including some cash going onto last year’s books.

Republicans said scrapping the power plant emission rule was a major policy victory for the energy economy in the nation’s No. 2 natural gas-producing state.

The overwhelming feeling among Butler County’s representatives in Pennsylvania’s General Assembly was relief after the state finally pushed through a budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year on Wednesday, Nov. 12 — 134 days past the deadline.

“This budget is incredibly late and still does not reign in government spending enough,” said state Rep. Marci Mustello, R-11th. “However, as a compromise, it is about as good as we can expect to get from the current cast in Harrisburg. ...Therefore, I voted ‘yes’ on the final budget proposal.”

The proposal in question passed by the Democratic-controlled state House by a 156-47 vote on Wednesday, and shortly thereafter the GOP-controlled Senate voted in favor by a margin of 40-9 (with one abstention). Shapiro signed the budget on Wednesday afternoon.

Mustello was the only Butler County representative in the Pennsylvania House to vote yes on the budget proposal, which appropriates just over $50 billion for the state to spend over the next fiscal year. This total is a decrease form the $51.5 billion originally proposed by Shapiro earlier this year.

The other three representatives — Aaron Bernstine, R-8th; Tim Bonner, R-17th; and Stephenie Scialabba, R-12th — all voted no.

“While this plan includes several positive elements, I could not support a budget that spends $6 billion more in recurring spending than we have in recurring revenue,” Bernstine said in a news release. “That kind of imbalance will ultimately force future tax increases on Pennsylvania families, and I cannot support a budget that places that burden on hardworking taxpayers.”

“I voted against the general appropriations bill because it’s $6 billion underfunded,” Scialabba said. “I objected to the overall amount of spending.”

Butler County’s Senate delegation was split. State Sen. Elder Vogel, R-47th, voted yes, while state Sen. Scott Hutchinson, R-21st, voted no.

Despite voting no on the budget, Scialabba was glad to have the 4.5-month impasse behind her, and she voted yes on the accompanying code bills that enable spending for the budget.

“I objected to the overall amount of spending, but once the amount was set, then I voted in favor of the code bills,” Scialabba said. “I think I and a lot of my colleagues recognized that people are tired. Our schools and our senior homes and our veterans’ homes, they all need funding. So I was not going to hold up that funding with code bills, so I voted for the code bills.”

Both Scialabba and Mustello cite the decision by Pennsylvania to exit the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative — a longtime sticking point for state Republicans — as one of the key reasons why legislators were finally able to bridge the gap on Wednesday.

“Getting rid of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative will be a huge victory for households in helping to control skyrocketing energy prices, and it will serve as a catalyst for job creation across the state,” Mustello said.

“This is going to do wonders for domestic energy production, for our trades, for people who are now coming up on the holidays and having to pay for utilities,” Scialabba said. “We’ve got the widespread adoption and deployment of AI with all the data center work coming up. We’re trying to have this be a boon year for Pennsylvania. RGGI was a crucial step in putting Pennsylvania back.”

In an email to constituents, Vogel said the budget that passed Wednesday was better than the governor’s original proposal.

“Through these critical reforms, we have prevented Pennsylvanians from being affected by Gov. Josh Shapiro’s proposed plan, which would have increased our spending by 7.5% and in turn set our state on the path toward mass broad-based tax increases next year,” said Vogel. “After months of intense negotiations, we were able to agree on a more reasonable, fiscally responsible solution that invests in our schools, our workforce and our farmers all while protecting Pennsylvania taxpayers.”

With the 2025-26 budget wrapped up, Scialabba’s attention is already turned toward 2026-27.

“Seeing how this dragged on, I think we need to already start focusing on next year so that we don’t get delayed like this again,” Scialabba said.

Democrats won’t get the amount of money that Shapiro originally sought in his initial budget proposal, but the deal delivers substantial new sums to public schools, as Democrats had sought, and an earned income tax credit for lower earners.

It will also bring relief that the stalemate is over. Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman, R-Indiana, called it an “imperfect product” that reflected the difficult compromises of a politically divided government.

“While it may have taken time, more time than any of us would have preferred, we have brought a divided government together and proved that it is not dysfunctional government,” Pittman said during remarks on the Senate floor.

The state lost some of its spending authority on July 1 without a signed state budget in force, forcing vendors to go without payment, unable to pay workers. Without state aid, counties, school districts and social service agencies warned of mounting layoffs, borrowing costs and growing damage to the state’s safety net.

The agreement to back off the carbon dioxide cap-and-trade regulation on power plants comes six years after then-Gov. Tom Wolf made joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative the centerpiece of his plan to fight climate change.

Ending it is “one of biggest policy wins in the past 10 years,” Sen. Wayne Langerholc, R-Cambria, said.

Wolf's regulatory plan had sidestepped resistant Republican lawmakers in a bid to make Pennsylvania — the nation’s second-largest natural gas producer — the only major fossil fuel-producing state to undertake a carbon cap-and-trade program.

It had yet to take effect while the state’s highest court considers a legal challenge that questions whether the carbon-pricing plan amounts to a tax, and is thus unconstitutional without legislative approval.

Backers of the regulation included environmental advocates as well as solar, wind and nuclear power producers who had called it the biggest step ever taken in Pennsylvania to fight climate change.

It was opposed by Republicans, fossil fuel interests and the labor unions that work on pipelines, refineries and power plants who warned that the cost was sending energy companies to other states to build new gas-fired power plants.

Shapiro had also expressed misgivings about it, and an alternative plan that he proposed has yet to receive traction in the Legislature amid Republican opposition.

Almost all of the overall spending increase will go toward Medicaid and public schools.

Meanwhile, the budget didn’t deliver what Shapiro had sought in higher public transit aid, what counties had sought for mental health services or what providers such as nursing homes, insurers and home-care providers had sought in Medicaid reimbursements.

The budget plan holds the line on tax rates and fees, lawmakers say. But it uses more than $4 billion in surplus cash to achieve balance, the second straight year that Pennsylvania is running a multibillion-dollar budget deficit, reflecting a slow-growing economy and a shrinking workforce that delivers relatively meager gains in tax collections.

The agreement also includes Pennsylvania's first refundable earned income tax credit, which reduces or wipes out the state income tax for people who make less than a certain amount of money, depending on how many children they have. It’s something most other states have on their books.

Pennsylvania’s plan is projected to cost nearly $200 million a year. Had it been in effect this year, the average eligible family would have gotten a $650 break, lawmakers say.

Eagle staff writer William Pitts contributed to this story.