Notice

Governor Shapiro Signs 2024-25 Commonwealth Budget into Law

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro signed a series of bills late July 11, 2024, enacting the state’s 2024-25 budget 11 days late. The previous fiscal year ended in June. The final vote in the House was 122-80. In the Senate, the vote was 44-5.

The core of the bipartisan budget is a $47.6 billion appropriation from the general fund - the state’s main operating account – that comes in about $750 million less than what Governor Shapiro had requested in his budget pitch earlier this year but is about $2.7 billion more than what was appropriated for 2023-24.

“This budget is a major victory for the people we were all elected to serve,” Shapiro said in remarks before signing the budget.

The centerpiece of the deal includes a billion-dollar boost to K-12 public education to address last year’s landmark court ruling that found Pennsylvania’s education funding unconstitutionally inequitable. The budget did not include revenue from legalized recreational marijuana or the regulation and taxation of so-called “skill games.”

“This is not a budget, if I were crafting it unilaterally, that I would have designed,” said Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman, R-Indiana, but “we accept the realities of what it means to be in the majority in a divided government.”

Both Chambers will now break for summer recess and will return to Harrisburg in mid-September.

Specific details in the budget important to your borough include:

• A new Main Street Matters program funded at $20 million.
• Extension of the existing waiver for local match on multimodal grants.
• $50 million for grants through the Small Water and Sewer Program.
• $50 million for grants through the Multimodal Transportation Fund Program.
• Reauthorization of the Fire and EMS Grant Program as well as a provision giving the State Fire Commissioner the authority to give 45 additional days to apply for the program if the Fire or EMS Company demonstrates a hardship or undue burden that prevented them from getting their application in.
• $10 million for a new Mixed-Use Revitalization Grant Program.
• $2.5 million for Local Government Emergency Housing Support.
• Raises the cap for PHARE funding to $100 million per year by 2026.
• $80.5 million in new funding to repair our roads and bridges.
• $80.5 million for public transit agencies.