2025-2026 Budget Complete

2025-2026 State Budget Complete

We understand that the budget impasse was affecting Pennsylvanians and the agencies that rely on state funding. That’s why we took the responsible step of passing last year’s budget twice to keep money flowing to critical programs. Unfortunately, the other side of the aisle rejected that approach, leaving Pennsylvanians to pay the price. I am pleased to share that, after months of negotiation, we have finally come to an agreement, and the budget impasse is over.

The $50.1 billion budget approved by the Senate and the House cuts nearly $1.4 billion in spending from the Governor’s original proposal, uses billions in prior-year lapsed dollars and excess special fund balances to protect taxpayers, block the proposed electricity tax, empower families, and support students, working families, and seniors.

Protecting Taxpayers
We conducted a thorough review of every state agency and special fund, leading to several major savings:

We identified $3 billion in prior-year lapses and unused fund balances now redirected to this year’s budget. This ensures these dollars are used responsibly in the best interest of taxpayers.
We rebased spending on several line items to reflect what agencies are actually spending, not just what they received in the prior year. This resulted in net savings totaling tens of millions of dollars annually.

Blocking the Proposed Electricity Tax
This agreement also ends uncertainty surrounding the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). Rejecting RGGI, a multi-state electricity tax the Governor was pursuing through the courts, prevents a $1.6 billion electricity tax, protects energy and manufacturing jobs and preserves electric grid reliability.

Stopping the RGGI Electricity tax is a huge win for every consumer of electricity in this Commonwealth. At a time when families continue to feel the strain of inflationary pressure, we must look for ways to decrease, not increase, the cost of electricity.

Providing certainty that Pennsylvania will NOT enter RGGI clears a major hurdle that prevents energy providers from investing in our Commonwealth, clearing the way for the kind of energy sector growth that will help our economy expand to prevent significant new cost burdens on consumers and the threat of rolling blackouts in the future.

Empowering Families and Supporting Students
Education Funding is broken down into four categories of formula based funding; Basic Education Funding, Special Education Funding, Ready to Learn Block Grant, and net Cyber Charter savings. With all that taken into consideration, the public-school districts in the 6^th Senatorial district will receive an additional $5,098,075 in state funding this year:

Bensalem School District – $2,957,451
Council Rock School District – $545,637
Neshaminy School District – $790,372
Central Bucks School District – $461,070
Centennial School District – $343,615

Supporting Working Families
We created the Working Pennsylvanians Tax Credit — an earned income tax credit for working families that will deliver $193 million in tax relief for working families equal to 10 percent of the federal credit — putting more money back in hard-working Pennsylvanians’ pockets.

Supporting Seniors
To strengthen programs that benefit older Pennsylvanians, the budget provides a $100 million transfer to the Lottery Fund and adds $90 million in recurring i-gaming revenue.

The budget also includes a $10 million increase for Area Agencies on Aging to meet the growing demand for services.

Although it was a long and tedious process, Pennsylvanian will be better off because of this agreement.

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