HARRISBURG – Sen. Lisa Baker (R-20) voted today to advance a bipartisan state budget plan that will help grow Pennsylvania’s economy and make key improvements to the spending plan Gov. Josh Shapiro proposed earlier this year.
The $50.1 billion budget approved by the Senate and the House cuts nearly $1.4 billion in spending from Shapiro’s proposal, utilizes billions in lapsed funding in state agencies and special funds in the best interests of taxpayers, protects Pennsylvanians from the devastating consequences of Shapiro’s proposed electricity tax, and incentivizes job growth across the commonwealth by implementing key reforms to the permitting process and maintaining important tax cuts.
“There is no convincing justification for an extended budget deadlock that causes hardships for service providers and citizens of every age dependent on state programs,” Baker said. “However, we in the end achieved several long-run improvements for taxpayers that were not available without the pressure of protracted negotiations.”
As part of the budget agreement, the illegal regulation mandating Pennsylvania’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) – a multi-state pact that would have added more than a billion dollars in new electricity taxes on Pennsylvania families and job creators – was eliminated.
Preventing Pennsylvania from entering RGGI and stopping this tax protects consumers from dealing with even more severe consequences, including the closure of Pennsylvania power plants, job losses, and the threat of rolling blackouts in the years ahead.
In addition, critical reforms to Pennsylvania’s permitting process will make our state more competitive economically by requiring a wide variety of environmental permits to be deemed approved after a certain period of time, ensuring applicants know the time frame for consideration of their application and can appeal any permits that are denied. This provides certainty to the process and ends the current practice of dragging out the permitting process for many months without resolution.
Senate Republicans also achieved key improvements to Shapiro’s budget proposal, including reforms to limit cost increases in human services programs; rebasing spending on some line items to reflect actual expenditures to use taxpayer dollars more efficiently; and protecting the state’s emergency Rainy Day Fund by slashing the governor’s proposed spending level and using approximately $3 billion in lapsed funding to fill budget gaps.
The budget continues policies championed by Senate Republicans to make Pennsylvania more competitive for business development and job growth, including continuing the phase-down of the Corporate Net Income Tax and preserving the increase to the Net Operating Loss deduction. As a result of these pro-growth policies, Pennsylvania job-creators will pay approximately $1.4 billion less in taxes than they would have paid under the previous rate in 2023.
The agreement includes new money to promote student achievement and empower families, including a $50 million expansion of the state’s popular Educational Improvement Tax Credit program to support more school choice opportunities for families in disadvantaged schools.
Additional funding is also included for the Ready to Learn Block Grant program ($562 million increase), Basic Education ($105 million increase), Special Education ($40 million increase) and Pre-K Counts ($9.5 million increase).
An additional $7.5 million will support the Grow PA Scholarship Grant program created by Senate Republicans last year to provide grants of up to $5,000 to students pursuing higher education for in-demand fields, provided they agree to stay and work in Pennsylvania after graduation.
A $15 million cut proposed by Shapiro to workforce development programs was restored, ensuring these programs can continue to help train Pennsylvanians for high-quality, family-sustaining jobs.
The budget protects programs designed to benefit older Pennsylvanians by providing a $100 million transfer to the Lottery Fund, as well as $90 million in recurring funding from i-gaming. An additional $10 million was also provided to Area Agencies on Aging.
The plan also protects and promotes Pennsylvania’s farmers by including key provisions to ensure the Pennsylvania Animal Diagnostic Laboratory System can continue to identify potential outbreaks and providing additional funding for Farmer’s Market Food Coupons ($7 million increase) and the State Food Purchase program ($4 million increase).
CONTACT: Jennifer Wilson