Committee Votes on HB 1416

The state Senate Appropriations Committee voted on Saturday morning to report House Bill 1416 – the budget bill – to the full Senate with a "negative recommendation."

Republican leaders opposed the House plan to remove higher education from the general fund budget. The House proposal would either create a $1.3 billion deficit in the budget requiring Pennsylvania to either raise taxes or strip funding from State System of Higher Education (SSHE) universities, as well as Penn State University, University of Pittsburgh, Temple University and Lincoln University and community colleges.

Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi says it's "obviously not a real proposal. It is an arbitrary division of a block of spending that presumably they picked because they thought it had some appeal – and it was unfunded."

The only way to fund it in their scenario, he said, is by raising new taxes.

For those reasons, he characterized it as not helpful, not productive and not something that moves the process forward.

He said the Senate will make amendments to HB 1416, "make it a real document," and send it back to the House. They will also continue negotiations with the other three Legislative Caucuses and the Administration.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Jake Corman added that it's important to quickly eliminate the notion that higher education won't be funded so students who attend, or will be attending, those universities know where they stand.

The Senate will convene Sunday afternoon.

Pictured, Corman, Pileggi and Senate Majority Whip Jane Orie speak with the media after the appropriations committee voted HB 1416 out of committee.