Gov. Tom Wolf signed a state budget June 30 that “will help power the commonwealth’s recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic by making the largest investment in public education in state history, by investing in quality, affordable child care for parents who wish to return to the workforce and by helping Pennsylvanians struggling with mortgage or rent payments stay in their homes,” according to Wolf’s press office.

“This is a budget that invests in Pennsylvanians,” Wolf said. “It is a budget that will help those hit hardest by the pandemic get the support they need, while at the same time making crucial investments in our future by supporting the students and workers who will drive our economy forward in the years to come.”

According to Wolf’s office, the budget outlined in House Bill 1348 includes a $416 million increase in state funding for public education. The budget includes crucial investments to support the needs of schools and students, including a $200 million increase in the fair funding formula, $100 million to support underfunded school districts through the Level Up initiative, $50 million in special education funding, $30 million for early education, $20 million for Ready to Learn, $11 million for preschool early intervention and $5 million for community colleges.

“While there is much to celebrate in this bill, it is disappointing that we could not come together to fully provide for the needs of schools across the commonwealth,” Wolf said. “We need all public education funding to go through the fair funding formula to ensure each school district and each student in our commonwealth are getting the support they need. There is more – much more – that needs to be done to fully provide for the needs of our commonwealth’s students and the future of our workforce.”

The Pennsylvania senate approved the budget by a 43-7 vote.

Reaction to the budget passage was mixed by legislators.

“This budget may not have included everything I wanted but without a tax increase it makes significant investments in many of my priorities,” state Sen. Lisa Boscola, D-18th, said. “In total $200 million will be added to the Fair Funding Formula and an additional $100 million will be provided to school districts that have been historically underfunded, which includes school districts like Bethlehem Area School District. Spending more money through the fair funding formula has been a priority of mine and will help Lehigh Valley school districts. In total the state will be spending $13.55 billion on pre-K through 12th grade.

“The budget also makes critical investments totaling $44 million into career and technical schools. It provides an additional $279 million for transportation infrastructure. It will place over $2 billion dollars in the state rainy day fund. The budget also creates an Angel Investment Fund based off the successful Ben Franklin Program to help grow new businesses here in Pennsylvania.

“Decisions on budgets are never easy. They require elected officials to balance competing interests and good and bad provisions. There is definitely more good in this budget, which is why I voted for it.”

“This budget takes into consideration lessons we learned from the Great Recession by ensuring we are responsible, not only with how we use federal stimulus money, but also with the decisions we are making here today to put us on as solid fiscal ground as possible heading into those years when the stimulus money runs out and the threat of a fiscal cliff is real. With that in mind, however, this budget still provides essential funding increases to help our students, as well as necessary long-term and critical care assistance for our older population and our citizens with disabilities,” state Sen. Pat Browne, R-16th, said.

The 2021-2022 state budget passed the Pennsylvania House of Representatives by a vote of 140 to 61.

“The House approved a budget that fails to meet the immediate needs of hardworking residents, front-line workers, retirees, business owners, community organizations, our health care system and our students,” State Rep. Jeanne McNeill, D-133rd, said.

“Yes, there were a few things that did see appropriation funding out of the $7 billion provided by the American Rescue Plan. However, my NO vote was prompted by the missed – and immediate – opportunities smarter budgetary investments would have provided.

“We failed to utilize the extra $10 billion (between $7 billion from the American Rescue Plan and $3 billion from an unexpected surplus) to ensure that funding problems – like how we fund the 500 public school districts – would no longer come to rest on the backs of the property owner.

“While I am NOT against saving money, morally and ethically, I can’t be in favor of a budget that fails to put people first, providing the immediate relief and smart solutions to long-standing problems as intended by the federal funding.

“It’s wonderful to say we have ‘billions’ in the bank; however, not addressing the long-standing problems and making investments now to end the financial burdens now only kicks-the-can further into our future (and grows the deficit). Our children, our grandchildren deserve better and I will continue advocating for the federal funding to be properly allocated to bring an end to this irresponsible way of running our government.”

“I voted to protect taxpayers across the commonwealth with a commitment to no new taxes and no new fees,” state Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, R-134th, said. “It continues our pledge to strengthen education by dedicating more funding to PreK-12, career and technical and higher education. We are also supporting children and families who have suffered through educational losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Our budget looks to deposit over $2.5 billion into the Rainy Day Fund to continue to secure our fiscal future, while preserving federal relief funds to be used for future budgets and addresses long-term issues arising from COVID-19.

“This legislation promoted a fiscally responsible budget, investing in our key priorities and saving for our future.”