Gov. Corbett

HARRISBURG — The state budget debate picked up steam in Harrisburg on Monday as the Republican majority took the wraps off a $27.15 billion spending plan while minority Democrats stalled aid to some of the state’s largest universities in protest over deep cuts pushed by the GOP.

The main budget bill was approved on a party-line vote by the Senate Appropriations Committee and was sent to the floor as Republicans continued their drive to complete a budget on time and before the new fiscal year begins for the first time in nine years.

The spending package, agreed to by Republican Gov. Tom Corbett, would cut spending by about 3 percent, thanks largely to more than $1.1 billion in cuts in aid to public schools and 18 state-supported universities, as he insists on cuts in state government and no tax increases to balance what he calls a multibillion-dollar deficit. It also would lower business taxes and keep hundreds of millions of dollars in reserve.

Republicans contend they are left with little choice but to cut spending as billions of dollars in temporary federal budget aid dries up and state tax collections still recover from the recession.

“It matches our revenues with our expenditures. You have to do that,” Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Jake Corman said after the party line committee vote. “It was sort of a fantasy that we were funding operating costs out of money that was short term. That money’s gone so we had to transition toward a more fiscally responsible budget. This does that. It doesn’t raise taxes ... (and) we figured out ways to reduce the operating costs of state government.”

However, Democrats decried cuts in funding for education, health care, economic development and social and human services, saying that Republicans are needlessly inflicting pain on the poor and middle class while lowering taxes for businesses and squirreling away hundreds of millions of surplus dollars.

In the House, minority Democrats defeated funding legislation for Pitt, Temple and the University of Pennsylvania’s veterinary school, and they delayed a vote on Penn State’s appropriation. Those funding bills required a two-thirds majority voting yes — requiring at least some minority party support — and Democrats urged voting them down to pressure Republicans to restore money from a surplus created by much-better-than-expected revenues in recent months.

A fifth vote, for Lincoln University’s state subsidy, passed narrowly. But it was unclear whether the House would reconsider those votes before the fall.

“A no vote tonight means that we can do better; a no vote tonight means that we must do better for the students and their families,” Rep. Phyllis Mundy, D-Luzerne, said during floor debate.

Republicans said the state’s looming financial demands — including a case at the state Supreme Court that could force the state to repay $800 million to a state-run fund that helps physicians pay medical malpractice insurance premiums — compelled them to save the estimated $650 million surplus instead of spending it.

“I wish it were true that Pennsylvania had some sort of a surplus, but it doesn’t,” said Rep. John Maher, R-Allegheny. “It only has a surplus in the way that someone who’s maxed out on their credit cards, has borrowed for their car, has no money in their bank account and finds 10 bucks in the pocket of their jeans coming out of the dryer thinks that they have a surplus.”

Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson, warned that the schools will have difficulty setting tuition rates if their funding level is not secured with passage of the budget, and he said public opinion will favor Republicans after they rejected Corbett’s original budget proposal to slash aid to the schools by more than 50 percent.

“I don’t think Pennsylvanians are at all convinced that going from a 54 percent cut to a 19 percent cut is a negative,” Scarnati said. “We’ve done as well as we can do working in the parameters that we’re working in, and like I said, they want to hold a gun to their head and take a hostage, so be it, but I believe that the ramifications of a late budget will be strictly on their shoulders.”

The House and Senate are expected to remain in session to finish the budget before lawmakers take their traditional two-month summer break from Harrisburg.