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Despite Republican domination of the Capitol, the final hours before Gov. Tom Corbett signed his second budget Saturday night were chaotic, with late-night votes, 11th-hour negotiations to seal deals and several senators almost hollering at each other over an obscure natural gas basin underneath southeastern Pennsylvania.
Corbett signed the $27.7 billion no-new-taxes general appropriations bill 15 minutes before midnight Saturday, the centerpiece of several long-term victories delivered by the Republican-controlled Legislature. The bill actually went to his desk Friday, but he waited for passage of companion pieces of legislation that were integral to the budget, crucial to his agenda or adorned with lawmakers’ pet provisions.
With heavy support from Democrats, he won approval for two different tax credits: one designed to entice a subsidiary of Netherlands-based oil and gas giant Royal Dutch Shell PLC to build a massive new petrochemical refinery and another designed to advance his agenda to open up taxpayer-financed alternatives to public schools.
He also cemented an overhaul of how public school teachers’ classroom performance will be evaluated, and he eased his former chief of staff and longtime friend, Bill Ward, into his dream job of being a judge.
But action on many items in the final 36 hours before Corbett signed the budget veered between hastily called committee meetings, last-minute amendments and last-ditch talks.
The governor had his defeats: Top Republicans blamed him for being unable to sway support for provisions he wanted to encourage more privately run, taxpayer-funded charter schools.
Much of Friday and Saturday was devoted trying to iron out disagreements between House and Senate Republicans on the subject. When compromise efforts finally stalled Saturday, Republicans in each chamber unveiled their own competing education bill dozens of pages long just minutes before voting on them.
“It’s clear at this late hour that there’s not sufficient support in the House and the governor’s office just simply hasn’t laid sufficient groundwork for driving this thing across the finish line,” Senate Education Committee Chairman Jeffrey Piccola, R-Dauphin, said Saturday.
The budget plan for the 2012-13 fiscal year that began Sunday passed with just 14 Democratic votes. It authorizes a spending increase of about 1.5 percent, largely for debt, pensions and health care for the poor, as well as to help fill an approximately $160 million shortfall in the just-finished fiscal year.
Meanwhile, it is projected to deposit around $350 million to $400 million into reserves, cut businesses’ taxes by hundreds of millions of dollars and slash hundreds of millions of dollars from services for the poor, homeless, troubled and disabled.
One cut that left many Democrats bitter will end a Depression-era cash benefit of about $200 a month intended for poor adults who are temporarily disabled or unable to work. On Friday, Democrats extracted a concession from Corbett to allow the benefit to last for another 30 days until Aug. 1.
Aid for public schools and universities will remain flat — a handful of public schools approaching financial collapse will see a little extra money — after absorbing more than $1 billion in cuts in the just-ended fiscal year. But more new education money, $75 million, went toward tax credits approved Saturday night to reward businesses that contribute to scholarships for students who transfer to private schools or public schools outside their home districts.
As Corbett prepared to sign the budget, a dispute erupted on the Senate floor over a late-arriving provision inserted into a key piece of budget-related legislation. The provision — a moratorium on drilling into the untapped South Newark Basin natural gas reservoir below portions of southeastern Pennsylvania — was championed by Sen. Charles McIlhinney, R-Bucks.
Chastised by Sen. Jim Ferlo, D-Allegheny, and Sen. Mary Jo White, R-Venango, McIlhinney shot back, suggesting that he did not know that four-month-old limitations on municipal control over drilling activity would affect his suburban Philadelphia district.
“I find it pretty reprehensible that she’s jumping up and saying that she doesn’t like the idea that I’m trying to protect my community when she did just that” in the February law regulating the growth of natural gas exploration that also reserved most drilling fee revenue for counties like White’s that are home to the exploration.
Ferlo responded angrily.
“I cannot believe the disingenuous descriptions and commentary that I just heard,” Ferlo charged. “People knew full well what the heck they were voting on. ... The fact of the matter is it became a political hot potato for a couple of colleagues from a couple of counties. Now they’re coming here with their tail between their legs and seeking some relief.”
Even after Corbett signed the budget, the House plowed past 1 a.m. as Republicans tried to squeeze through as many bills as they could in the waning moments of the spring voting session. One bill — a constitutional amendment — would allow the Legislature to set qualifications for tax-exempt institutions.
“Now after midnight, we’re changing the constitution?” questioned Rep. Scott Conklin, R-Centre.
The proposal, which passed, will still require approval in the next two-year session of the Legislature and, after that, from the voters.
It was after 1 a.m. Sunday when the chamber approved a bill to expand the use of red light cameras to catch traffic violators in Pennsylvania and sent it to Corbett’s desk. In addition to extending use of the automated cameras in Philadelphia through 2017, it would allow the devices in Pittsburgh and suburban Philadelphia municipalities with at least 20,000 residents and accredited police departments.