A look at budget plans in the Pennsylvania Legislature

The state Senate returned to the Capitol Sunday night to begin considering portions of the budget agreement with Gov. Wolf, even though the deal still appeared to be near collapse.

The budget bill received just one “no” vote in committee, from Sen. The plan includes a total of $309.6 million in new revenue from a 50-cent per-pack cigarette tax; an expansion into Internet gambling; a new tax on e-cigarettes and loose and smokeless tobacco; and a personal income tax on lottery winnings.

Wozniak, who voted in favor of the budget bill (Senate Bill 1073), said the spending plan offers significant investments in education, human service programs and job creation.

House Republican lawmakers emerged from a long closed-door meeting Saturday to say that the majority caucus won’t support a multi-faceted budget plan their leadership had helped negotiate.

The House has to go through considerations before they vote on the budget.

Both the House and Senate will now meet, putting forward different budget proposals.

The Senate passed a pension reform proposal on Monday by a 38-12 vote.

The Appropriations Committee approved the two bills late Sunday, providing some new details about what has been hammered out with Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf but no information about what new taxes will be needed.

The Senate passed a $30.8 billion spending blueprint with bipartisan support on Monday. The Senate budget bill also included hundreds of millions of dollars in one-time payment delays that Wolf initially had criticized in an earlier GOP budget bill he vetoed.

He says it represents positive movement in key areas, including spending on public education.

“These are bills that the governor will sign, and that’s the most important thing”, Corman said.

The payment “collars”, which limit how much schools and the government have to pay in, would be 2.25 percent of payroll next year and 4.5 percent in 2017-18 for both the State Employees’ Retirement System and the Public School Employees’ Retirement System. In the end, the House Republicans walked away from the deal – raising the ire of the Senate and the governor – and they have now come back with a scaled-back budget proposal. “The Senate has essentially said, ‘this is what we’re going to authorize for spending”, but it hasn’t said how it plans on paying for the budget, other that “yet to be determined taxes”, overhauling the state monopoly on liquor sales and perhaps pension reform.

Wolf, a Democrat, has agreed to sign the Senate legislation after he secured an agreement to raises taxes to deliver a record boost in aid to public schools and narrow a long-term budget deficit.