Sen. Scott Martin: Bringing Fiscal Sanity to the State Budget

Creating a state budget in divided government is always a challenge. Each side has its own goals, its own way of approaching certain issues, and its own priorities. This year’s budget process was no different.

These challenges were compounded by the state’s financial situation over the past several years, with a structural deficit we are still grappling with to this day.

As a frame of reference: the state collected $46.4 billion in net revenues last year, while total spending was well north of $50 billion. You don’t have to be a financial expert to see this approach is not sustainable year after year.

Gov. Shapiro and House Democrats seem to answer that question with more spending and (eventually) higher taxes. Their budget proposals would spend through the state’s entire emergency savings quickly and require massive tax increases on Pennsylvania families close on the horizon.

In fact, Shapiro proposed eliminating $4.6 billion from the state’s $7+ billion emergency savings in the Rainy Day Fund this year alone, which would have lowered our bond rating, increased debt costs and left the state less prepared to deal with any future disasters or serious economic downturns.

Without course correction, that would have meant the total elimination of the remaining balance of the Rainy Day Fund along with billions in higher taxes beginning next year. Indeed, without Senate Republicans serving as a check to Shapiro’s spending demands over the past three years, we would have been talking about tax increases this year.

While House Democrats immediately rubber-stamped Shapiro’s spending plan in April, Senate Republicans knew we needed to take a completely different approach to avoid sending Pennsylvania over the fiscal cliff.

For that reason, we fought for a much more responsible budget that meets the needs of our hard-working families and communities without burning through our emergency savings or creating massive new budget holes to fill in future years.

And we did it by performing the hard work Shapiro and House Democrats didn’t do.

Similar to our approach in last year’s budget, we pored through every line item, every account, every agency budget to find savings. The results?

• We increased the total amount of money reclaimed from government agencies to a whopping $4.5 billion over two years. That’s almost ten percent of the entire state budget.
• We found excess funding sitting in the Motor License Fund and ensured PennDOT would get this money out to projects over the next eighteen months. This will result in an additional $775 million of highway projects being completed on a quicker time frame.

• Hundreds of millions of dollars in government programs and services will be funded through existing agency budgets and surpluses, not new taxpayer dollars.

• In reviewing the Shapiro Administration’s cost and utilization estimates for the Department of Human Services, we found their request was more than $1 billion higher than what was actually needed.

• The Department of Corrections received $100 million less than originally requested. This reduction was in direct response to concerns Senate Republicans raised during budget hearings about exorbitant proposed increases in the department’s budget even after closing two correctional facilities last year.

• In total, we cut Shapiro’s spending request by $1.1 billion, leaving nearly half of all administrative line items at the same amount or below last year’s budget.

None of these things would have been possible without Senate Republicans fighting for fiscal responsibility at the budget table.

Looking forward, it is critical for us to also continue to pursue pro-growth strategies that unleash Pennsylvania’s economy – not hold it back. Creating more quality jobs and building a stronger workforce to fill these needs is the best way to ensure more of our young people choose to stay here and build their lives in our communities.

That approach will not only help reverse decades of Pennsylvania’s economic and demographic decline, but also holds the key to making life more affordable for hard-working families. An important component of that is keeping the commonwealth fiscally sound, holding state government accountable, and not going further into hardworking Pennsylvanian’s pockets.

Senator Martin represents the 13th District (parts of Lancaster and Berks counties) in the Pennsylvania Senate. He serves as part of the Senate Republican Leadership team as Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which plays a key role in developing the state budget.