HARRISBURG, Pa. — Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said Wednesday he will veto a school voucher initiative that he helped create, in order to end a state budget impasse.
House Democrats were poised to pass a $45.5 billion budget Wednesday night, after Shapiro announced he’d veto the $100 million voucher line item that the Republican-led state Senate approved last week. Instead, Shapiro said, legislative leaders will work to add a school voucher program or add to existing tax credit programs in the future.
The announcement marked a reversal in position for Shapiro as he negotiated his first budget since he took office in January. The annual state spending plan is already overdue; Pennsylvania’s new fiscal year began Saturday.
”Our Commonwealth should not be plunged into a painful, protracted budget impasse while our communities wait for the help and resources this commonsense budget will deliver,” Shapiro said in a statement.
The spending plan was an overall win for Shapiro, with more than $567 million in new spending for public education and a number of his budget priorities getting funded, such as free school breakfast and $50 million for home repairs.
But he would not come out unscathed: Shapiro upset public education advocates and his House Democratic allies in his pursuits of school choice options. Then he reneged on his deal with Senate Republicans, whom he’d worked with to put together the budget.
Shapiro, a Democrat, had supported the Senate’s plan for private-school vouchers for students who are eligible to attend the state’s lowest-performing public schools — as long as it included his other spending priorities, such as universal free school breakfast and public education funding increases. House Democrats, however, opposed any school voucher program, fearing it would take money away from public schools. House Majority Leader Matt Bradford, a Montgomery Democrat, said any voucher proposal would fail among his members, and a House committee last week vetoed a separate bill that would formally create a school voucher program.
“While I am disappointed the two parties could not come together, Leader Bradford has given me his word ... that he will carefully examine and consider additional education options,” Shapiro said.
In a Wednesday letter to Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman, an Indiana Republican, Bradford said top House Democrats will host joint hearings this summer about proposed school vouchers and existing tax credit programs to improve Pennsylvania students’ educational outcomes. He added that legislators need to consider the landmark Commonwealth Court decision earlier this year that ruled the state’s current education funding system is unconstitutional before moving forward on any alternate programs.
House Democrats and Shapiro’s administration also believed the line-item veto was not necessary and that House Democrats could approve the budget and let the voucher money sit unspent in a state Treasury account unless lawmakers passed accompanying legislation.
In other words, the money would be set aside, but couldn’t be spent until lawmakers create the voucher program. But Shapiro went further, and said he’d veto the line item once House lawmakers passed the budget.
“This is just one of several initiatives important to me that have passed in one chamber but not the other,” Shapiro said, noting statute of limitation reform, increasing the minimum wage, and more.
Senate Republicans approved the budget with more spending than they had wanted. Their only ask: Give us our school voucher program, a long-sought priority for GOP lawmakers and big-money conservative advocacy groups.
Neither Pittman nor Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward, a Westmoreland Republican, could be reached for comment Wednesday.
“This budget that we put together was put together with the governor as an agreement, as a whole package,” Ward said last week. “If they pull out our priorities ... you’re going to see a very slimmed-down, scaled-back budget, because there were things in this budget that we really didn’t want to do.”
The Senate passed its version and left town. When House Democrats, with a one-seat majority, approve the budget, it will go directly to Shapiro’s desk for his signature. Neither chamber has advanced the accompanying code bills, which outline how the state should spend its money, meaning there’s still more work to be done.
“The Senate put themselves in this risky situation by going home,” said Donna Cooper, executive director of Children First, a nonprofit supporting additional funding for public schools that opposes vouchers. “That’s what happens when you storm off the playground.”
Susan Spicka, executive director of the pro-public-education Education Voters PA advocacy group, said a line-item veto to voucher spending would ensure “there is no ambiguity about this.”
”We cannot have vouchers in Pennsylvania, period. We need to comply with the court ruling and deal with public education,” Spicka said, referring to the Commonwealth Court decision that found the state’s school funding system unconstitutional.
School choice advocates were quick to criticize Shapiro for reneging on his earlier agreement with Senate Republicans.
Matthew Brouillette, the president and CEO of the conservative group Commonwealth Partners, slammed Shapiro for giving up the fight to help kids “trapped in failing schools.”
“He claims he wins big fights, but in the first big fight of his administration — with kids’ futures on the line — he left the court without even taking one shot,” Brouillette said in a statement. “Today, Gov. Shapiro shows who really runs this state, and it’s not him.”
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