Gov. Wolf Indicators Funds with Largest Schooling Funding Improve in State Historical past
Governor Tom Wolf signed a state budget that will help the Commonwealth’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic by making the largest investment in public education in the state’s history by investing in high quality, affordable childcare for parents looking to return to work and by helping Pennsylvanians struggling with mortgage or rent payments stay in their homes.
“This is a budget that invests in Pennsylvania,” said Governor Wolf. “It is a budget that will help those hardest hit by the pandemic get the support they need, while at the same time making important investments in our future by supporting the students and workers who will propel our economy for years to come become.”
The budget set out in House Bill 1348 envisages a historic $ 416 million increase in government funding for public education. The budget is making major investments to support the needs of schools and students, including an increase in the fair funding formula of $ 200 million, $ 100 million to support underfunded school districts through the Level Up initiative, $ 50 million – $ 30 million to fund special schools, $ 30 million for early education, $ 20 million for Ready to Learn, $ 11 million for early childhood education, and $ 5 million for community colleges.
“While there is much to celebrate in this bill, it is disappointing that we have not been able to come together to fully meet the needs of schools across the Commonwealth,” said Governor Wolf. “We need all of the public education funding to go through the fair funding formula to ensure that every school district and student in our Commonwealth gets the support they need. More – much more – needs to be done to fully meet the needs of our Commonwealth’s students and the future of our workforce. “
The governor also vetoed House Bill 1300, which creates unreasonable – and in some cases unconstitutional – barriers to voting in Pennsylvania and removes many of the bipartisan improvements made in Act 77 of 2019, which removes additional restrictions on voting Identifying voters, restricting our mail-in voting system – which the Pennsylvanians have widely adopted – and the number of days to sign up for the vote.
The governor signed and partially approved Senate Bill 255, the General Funding Bill, while vetoing the item providing funds for the establishment and operation of the Bureau of Election Audits in HB 1300.
The governor also signed HB 952, HB 1508, HB 1509, HB 1510, HB 1511, HB 1512, HB 1513, HB 1514; HB 1515, HB 1516, SB 265, SB 266, SB 267, SB 268, SB 269 and SB 381.
