On January 1, Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati (R-Jefferson) used his remarks opening the new 2019-20 legislative session to warn of significant challenges ahead for this year’s state budget.
“This year brings with it significant challenges. The budget will certainly be a tremendous focus this coming year. We must find balance with the budget while ensuring that we respect taxpayers,” said Scarnati.
On November 15, the Independent Fiscal Office said the state faces an FY 2019-20 budget deficit of $1.7 billion or more because the current year budget was again balanced by $1 billion worth of one-time funding sources.
On January 2, the Department of Revenue reported Pennsylvania collected $2.9 billion in General Fund revenue in December, which was $70.1 million, or 2.5 percent, more than anticipated.
Fiscal year-to-date General Fund collections total $15.3 billion, which is $403.7 million, or 2.7 percent, above estimate. Click Here for more.
Republicans, of course, are keeping with the “no new taxes” and “live within our means” positions they’ve had in past years.
Both the Governor’s Budget Office and House Republicans are downplaying coming budget problems saying state revenues remain strong and the IFO usually overestimates state spending.
House Democrats have pointed to the need to make investments in priority areas, which include addressing years of underfunding and staff reductions that they say has hurt DEP’s ability to review permits for business and protect the environment.
House Government Oversight
House Republicans used changes to House rules to create a new House Government Oversight Committee to advance their regulatory “reform” and oversight agenda.
Regulatory “reform” has championed by conservative Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R-Butler) who served as House State Government Committee Republican Chair last session and has been named Republican Chair of the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee for the new session.
Rep. Metcalfe and House Republicans have passed by party line votes regulatory “reforms” like allowing the General Assembly to kill any regulation by doing nothing (Senate Republicans passed a similar bill), putting an arbitrary cap on the number of regulations, creating a new office to waive penalties for violating state laws if a permit holder “attempts” to comply and requiring a vote of the General Assembly before any “significant” regulation goes into effect (Senate Republicans have a similar bill). Click Here for more.
The new Oversight Committee was given subpoena power (not a routine power given to any committee) and will be holding hearings on any matter referred to it by the House Speaker, Republican and Democratic leaders on any executive branch matter or not being examined by Appropriations Committee or to a separate task force.
The Chair and members of the new committee have not yet been announced.
Committee Size Reduced
Senate Republicans used changes to Senate Rules to reduce the size of each standing committee by 1 member to more easily accommodate the new Republican-Democratic 29 to 21 split in the makeup of the chamber.
The Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, for example, went from 11 last session to 10 this session.
Republicans will still control each committee, of course, with a majority of members. The Environmental Committee last session had 7 Republicans as regular members and 4 Democratic members.
The Senate committee chairs and members have not yet been announced.
House Republicans used changes to House rules to reduce the size of its standing committees for a similar reason.
House committees will generally have 15 Republican members and 10 Democratic members. Last session it was 16 and 11.
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