HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania’s state Legislature was set to begin voting Thursday on a nearly $10 billion no-new-taxes spending package to carry state government through the rest of the fiscal year and fill, for the moment, a multibillion-dollar deficit inflicted by the pandemic.

The legislation emerged from closed-door talks as lawmakers rush to wrap up their two-year session.

Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, earlier this fall asked the Republican-controlled Legislature for another nearly $10 billion in spending to round out the fiscal year, after lawmakers approved a piecemeal, no-new-taxes $25.8 billion budget in May.

At the time, budgetmakers projected a $6 billion deficit, primarily due to the economic effects of the coronavirus. Since then, revenue collections have exceeded expectations, prompting the Wolf administration to raise its full-year revenue projection by $2 billion.

To close the rest of the gap, lawmakers are using more than $3 billion in federal pandemic aid approved by Congress and transferring more than $500 million from off-budget state accounts.

Using the federal aid serves to lower the reliance on state tax dollars from $35.5 billion to $32.1 billion. Last year’s approved budget was $34 billion.

Public schools, universities and many programs and state agencies will have to get by without an increase, amid rising costs for prisons, unionized state employee paychecks and care for the poor, elderly and disabled.

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