It's been nearly three weeks since Gov. Josh Shapiro signed Pennsylvania’s main state budget legislation into law, but code bills that will enable more than a billion dollars of the total $45.5 billion in spending remain unfinished. 

Supplemental funding for the commonwealth's poorest school districts, $50 million for a popular home repair program, and Pennsylvania's first-ever direct funding for public defenders are among the unfunded initiatives.

This week, state Senate GOP leaders announced they plan to return to Harrisburg on Wednesday, Aug. 30 to try and hammer out code language. The state House hasn’t yet said when it will return to Harrisburg. 

Read Spotlight PA's full report on what's behind the holdup and what's at stake: Home repair grants, poor districts caught up in budget delay.

THE CONTEXT: Beth Rementer, a spokesperson for House Democrats, said talks have been ongoing between the legislature and governor, and while the state House isn’t scheduled to return before Sept. 26, "we are not foreclosing on the possibility that we may return sooner" if a deal is reached.

John Neurohr of PA Schools Work said if supplemental funding isn’t allocated soon, it “will hurt kids … in rural, urban, and suburban communities." A dispute over private school vouchers has stalled related code bill talks.

Spotlight PA's Katie Meyer reports:

For most state programs, the lack of code language isn’t a big deal — they either don’t need it or can continue running using last year’s code language. The roughly $1.1 billion in spending that is stuck in limbo, however, needs code bills because the programs are either new and don't have existing language, or the previous code language that governed their spending must be updated.