Continuing investments in agriculture innovation: The 2025-26 budget builds on the work this new program began by investing another $10 million in agriculture innovation, important funding that will help support and attract new agricultural businesses – including energy and conservation endeavors – and build the future of American agriculture right here in Pennsylvania. 

• How it works: This funding will provide grants, loans, and technical and logistical assistance for innovative farming practices in Pennsylvania to empower our farmers to adopt cutting-edge agricultural practices that will help position our ag industry as a model for the nation. 

Leading the nation in HPAI response: Animal testing remains important, especially with the recent outbreaks of the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza. 

• The 2024-25 budget provided resources to start a fourth animal testing laboratory in the western part of the state. 

• This budget continues funding to keep this new laboratory operational, providing critical testing services for farmers to ensure their livestock remain healthy and viable for continued farming operations.  

Combatting food insecurity: This budget also supports farmers in the vital and noble role they play in feeding others and invests in efforts to connect that work to community initiatives working to combat hunger in Pennsylvania and bolsters Pennsylvania’s own efforts to provide food assistance to hungry families. The 2025-26 budget increases investments for food security by $11 million, including:

• $3 million for the State Food Purchase Program and $1 million for the Pennsylvania Agricultural Surplus System (PASS) 

• $2 million for a new State Food Bucks program to supplement SNAP.

• $5 million in new funding to Pennsylvania food banks.

Expanding the Child and Dependent Care Enhancement Tax Credit, delivering $136 million in savings to over 218,000 families;

Creating an Employer Child Care Contribution Tax Credit, enabling businesses to support employees’ child care costs; 

Securing nearly $93 million across his first two budgets for the CCW program, allowing up to 75,000 low-income families to access subsidized care; 

Delivering increased investments in early childhood education, including $15 million more for Pre-K Counts and $2.7 million more for Head Start.

The budget also includes an increase of $10 million for Early Intervention to provide coaching support and services to families with children with developmental delays and disabilities.

The budget invests $25 million to establish a new Child Care Staff Recruitment and Retention Program to support child care workforce retention and recruitment bonuses.

• This bonus would provide $450 annually per employee to licensed child care providers in the Child Care Works program.

This budget invests an additional $7.5 million for the Pre-K Counts program to help providers raise wages and stabilize the early educator workforce

This budget creates the Working Pennsylvanians Tax Credit to provide $193 million in tax relief for working families in its first year. Nearly one million Pennsylvanians will qualify. This is the seventh tax cut in just three years under the Shapiro Administration.

Anyone who qualifies for the federal EITC will now receive both credits — helping reduce taxes owed and increasing refunds for those who need it most.

This chart shows the maximum federal EITC and the corresponding maximum Working Pennsylvanians Tax Credit — equal to 10 percent of the federal amount — along with the estimated number of Pennsylvanians who will benefit in Tax Filing Year 2025.

The 2025-26 budget includes a $21 million investment to increase direct care worker wages for those who provide services to adults with physical disabilities and seniors in the participant-directed care model. The investment includes a wage increase, paid time off, and increases access to affordable insurance for approximately 8,500 workers.

In this budget, the Governor fought for and secured a $10 million increase through the Department of Aging’s PENNCARE program to assist the 52 AAAs in providing key services to older adults, like meals, social activities and transportation.

Caring for older adults can only be done with a dedicated workforce, so the 2025-26 final budget also includes $21 million to increase wages for direct care workers who provide services to adults with physical disabilities and older adults in the participant-directed care model.

Last year, the Commonwealth created the first Alzheimer’s Disease Division at the Department of Aging. This budget builds on that progress with a $5 million investment for grants to qualifying institutions doing research on neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, ALS, and Parkinson’s.

This budget builds on the Governor’s permitting reform work to further speed up permitting for economic development:

• Expanding DEP’s Streamlining Permits for Economic Expansion and Development (SPEED) program – which was created in last year’s budget – to expedite permitting decisions from three to six key construction permits. SPEED allows qualified professionals to review certain permits to speed up the decision-making process.

• Creating a public tracker and database of the permits involved in the SPEED program. 

• Accelerating the time frames for DEP to complete its review of two types of permit applications.

Hiring More Staff to Process Permits: This budget includes a $15.8 million increase to hire staff to support these reforms at DEP. This year alone, DEP has reviewed and acted on more than 30,000 permit applications and conducted 88,799 inspections of regulated facilities to ensure compliance with environmental laws.

Main Street Matters: Our Main Streets are the beating hearts of our communities ― and the economic strength of our towns and cities is directly tied to the success of small businesses and our Main Streets. That’s why the Shapiro Administration has made investing in our Main Streets a priority. This budget continues to deliver $20 million for main streets and small businesses through Main Street Matters to strengthen commercial corridors across the Commonwealth.

Supporting Small and Minority-Owned Businesses: This budget includes a continuation of $20 million in state funding for small minority-owned businesses across the Commonwealth through the Historically Disadvantaged Business Program.

Growing Pennsylvania’s Workforce: This budget provides $7.5 million for the Grow PA Scholarship Program, helping students pursue in-demand careers and strengthen Pennsylvania’s workforce pipeline.

Building Shovel-Ready Sites: The Shapiro Administration will also continue to push out $500 million in site development funding secured in the 2024-25 budget to attract major companies, create jobs, and grow the economy. Already, the Administration has granted over $113 million to create shovel-ready sites across the Commonwealth – including sites that are being turned into major job-creating projects like in Bedford and in Mayfield.

Cutting Taxes for Businesses and Working Families: Since taking office, Governor Shapiro has cut taxes seven times for families, seniors, and small businesses — expanding the Property Tax/Rent Rebate program for the first time in nearly two decades, creating the Employer Child Care Contribution Tax Credit, allowing Pennsylvanians to save money by deducting their student loan payments on their taxes, expanding the Child and Dependent Care tax credit for working families, saving businesses more than $1.5 billion by lowering the Corporate Net Income Tax (CNIT) rate, and increasing net operating loss deductions for small businesses. This budget cuts the CNIT another half percent.

What we’re doing together is working. As a result of the investments we’ve made:

• 778 schools have been able to expand mental health services and hire counselors.

• Pennsylvania schools served nearly 93 million breakfasts to Pennsylvania students in the last school year — that's 11 million more than the year Governor Shapiro took office.

• 3,000 more students are enrolled in career and technical education courses.

• Graduation rates across the Commonwealth are rising.

• Consumer Affairs now ranks Pennsylvania as one of the top states for quality public education in the country.

Building on that progress, and last year’s record-setting K–12 funding, the 2025–26 budget delivers more than $900 million in additional funding for pre-K–12 public education – and includes historic reforms to Pennsylvania’s cyber charter reimbursement system, saving public schools $175 million. 

Taken together, under Governor Shapiro’s leadership, Pennsylvania has increased funding for our schools by nearly $3 billion since the Governor took office. 

Building on last year’s record-setting K–12 funding, this budget continues funding for universal free breakfast, mental health supports in schools, vo-tech, and school infrastructure - including $25 million for the Solar for Schools program. The 2025–26 budget also delivers $920 million in additional funding for K–12 public education, including: 

• $565 million in new adequacy funding to expand support to all school districts across the Commonwealth and a $105 million increase for Basic Education Funding. The adequacy funding formula was expanded to drive out more money to schools.
• $40 million increase for Special Education Funding, continuing the Governor’s commitment to equitable education for all students.
• $175 million in estimated savings for school districts through historic Cyber Charter Reform. Comprehensive changes to Pennsylvania’s cyber charter school law align tuition payments with the actual cost of providing an online education, add new allowable deductions for costs not incurred by cyber charters, and close loopholes that inflated payments — saving public schools $175 million statewide.
• $10 million increase for the Student Teacher Stipend Program, helping address educator shortages and make teaching a more accessible and rewarding career path – raising the annual amount available for the initiative to $30 million.
• $7.5 million to increase Pre-K rates, supporting early learners and stabilizing the child care workforce.
• $7.5 million for the Grow PA Scholarship Program, helping students pursue in-demand careers and strengthen Pennsylvania’s workforce pipeline.
• $11.9 million increase to PHEAA to maintain the maximum state grant amount and help more students afford college, plus $500,000 each for the Act 101 program and the Cheyney University Honors Academy. 
• $5 million increase for public libraries and $433,000 for library services for the visually impaired, strengthening lifelong learning and access to information in communities across the Commonwealth.
• Prioritizing Structured Literacy: This budget authorizes PDE to gather information about schools’ existing reading curricula and use that information to establish a grant program to help ensure Pennsylvania teachers get the training they need to teach our youngest students to read well.

Expands DEP’s Streamlining Permits for Economic Expansion and Development (SPEED) program – which was created in last year’s budget – to expedite permitting decisions from three to six key construction permits. SPEED allows qualified professionals to review certain permits to speed up the decision-making process.

Creates a public tracker and database of the permits involved in the SPEED program.

Accelerates the time frames for DEP to complete its review of two types of permit applications.

$15.8 million increase to hire staff to support these reforms at DEP. This year alone, DEP has reviewed and acted on more than 30,000 permit applications and conducted 88,799 inspections of regulated facilities to ensure compliance with environmental laws.

$18 million increase to continue the Shapiro Administration’s historic well plugging operation. DEP has plugged more than 315 wells throughout the Commonwealth – more than were plugged in the previous 10 years combined – under Governor Shapiro’s leadership since he took office over two years ago.

Ensuring the State Police are Equipped to Protect Our Communities: This budget continues to support PSP’s mission to protect the safety of Pennsylvania communities by supporting four additional cadet classes. Beginning in 2025-26, this funding will allow for the training of at least 250 more new State Troopers to provide critical policing services to Pennsylvania’s residents. Since he took office, Governor Shapiro has secured funding for twelve cadet classes to train over 1,000 new Pennsylvania State Troopers and secured funding to help municipal police departments recruit and retain nearly 700 municipal police officers across the Commonwealth. To date, more than 500 cadets have graduated and joined the ranks of PSP under Governor Shapiro’s leadership.

Supporting the City of Harrisburg Fire Department: Pennsylvania’s career and volunteer firefighters and first responders bravely put themselves in harm’s way to protect their neighbors and serve an essential role in ensuring the safety of their communities – and the Governor and his family are grateful to the first responders who responded to the arson attack at the Governor’s residence in Harrisburg and quickly extinguished the fire. 

Firefighters are being stretched thin right now, responding to more and more calls each year as the number of firefighters across the Commonwealth shrinks. The Governor’s budget increases state support for the City of Harrisburg Fire Department by an additional $2 million each year, bringing the total state funding to $7 million per year.

Reducing Crime and Gun Violence: Over the past two years, the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD) has provided more than $600 million in funding for over 3,500 grants across Pennsylvania to address and prevent violence in our communities. In the most recent round of BOOST, VIP, and CCVI grant funding, PCCD received an overwhelming response with 478 applications requesting more than $174 million — more than three times the current allocation of $56.5 million in funding. The 2025-26 budget increases investments in PCCD to ensure community organizations have the resources to continue doing critical violence prevention work, including:

• A $5.65 million increase for the successful Violence Intervention and Prevention program, reducing community violence by relying on community groups that are most in tune with specific local needs. Under Governor Shapiro, state funding for the VIP program has increased from $30M to $62M – an increase of 107%. Over the past two years, PCCD has awarded $85 million in VIP funding to reduce gun violence and make Pennsylvania communities safer. 

• $11.5 million in continued funding for the Building Opportunity through Out of School Time (BOOST) Grant Program. BOOST was created in the 2024-25 budget and provides funding for after-school programs that provide enrichment opportunities for our kids, address the root causes of violence, and make our communities safer.  

Supporting First Responders Responding to Emergencies and Supporting Pennsylvanians Impacted by Natural Disasters: The federal government is hurting Pennsylvanians by walking away from vital disaster response funding. That’s why Democrats and Republicans came together to double funding for emergency preparedness here in Pennsylvania, from $20 million to $40 million. This funding is sorely needed — the Commonwealth has seen historic flooding over the last two years, touching nearly every region in Pennsylvania, including Tioga, Bucks, and Somerset Counties.

Supporting Victims of Violent Crime: PCCD’s Victim’s Compensation Assistance Program (VCAP) provides financial assistance to crime victims for expenses like relocation, medical bills, counseling, funeral costs, and lost wages. In the past, funding for the program has not kept up with the increased demand for help – putting this vital lifeline for crime victims at risk. As a temporary fix until a long-term solution can be addressed with the General Assembly, this budget provides flexibility to the funds currently transferred to PCCD from the Medical Marijuana Program Fund, which would allow PCCD to utilize current uncommitted funds to support VCAP-related expenses.