{"id":241974,"date":"2026-07-13T03:07:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T03:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/241974\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T03:07:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T03:07:13","slug":"pa-passes-50-8b-budget-for-2026-27","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/241974\/","title":{"rendered":"Pa. passes $50.8B budget for 2026-27"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spotlight PA<\/a> is an independent, nonpartisan and nonprofit newsroom producing investigative and public-service journalism that holds power to account and drives positive change in Pennsylvania. Sign up for our free newsletters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

HARRISBURG \u2014 Pennsylvania lawmakers have sent Gov. Josh Shapiro a $50.8 billion budget that makes major new investments in education but fails to address skill games regulation or other pressing policy questions.<\/p>\n

The deal was cut behind closed doors, and its details were in flux until late Saturday, when committees in both chambers advanced bills during a rare weekend session. The full Legislature took final votes Sunday, almost two weeks after the June 30 statutory deadline.<\/p>\n

It will put more than $900 million into education; provide a pension bump<\/a> to thousands of retired school, state and emergency response workers, many of whom retired before 2001; and require data centers to report their annual energy and water consumption to the state. The plan also preserves<\/a> the state\u2019s nearly $8 billion rainy day fund \u2014 a key priority for Republicans, who control the state Senate.<\/p>\n

It does the latter by pulling more than $500 million from off-budget \u201cspecial\u201d funds, taking unused funds from agency bank accounts, and using accounting maneuvers such as delaying $1.3 billion in payments to the state\u2019s Medicaid managed care organizations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis budget allows the commonwealth to fight yet another day,\u201d Senate Appropriations Chair Scott Martin, R-Lancaster, said on the chamber floor Sunday before the main spending bill passed 44-6. The state House approved it a few hours later by a 167-35 vote.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

House Appropriations Chair Jordan Harris, D-Philadelphia, told reporters after a committee vote Saturday night that the plan would ensure that individuals on Medicaid plans receive their healthcare.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, people get paid. Bills get paid,\u201d Harris said. \u201cWhether it gets paid today or gets paid tomorrow, the bills will get paid.\u201d<\/p>\n

The budget does not change the state\u2019s fiscal reality \u2014 that it spends more money than it brings in. It also does not include any new revenue-generating policy changes, such as new taxes on tech firms<\/a> supported by lawmakers from both major parties.<\/p>\n

Fiscal conservatives denounced the budget\u2019s fiscal maneuvering. State Rep. Marc Anderson, R-York, invoked the arrest of bootlegger Al Capone for tax evasion.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was cooking the books,\u201d Anderson said. \u201cCitizens of the commonwealth, what we\u2019re doing today \u2026 is voting on a budget that cooks the books.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year marks the commonwealth\u2019s fifth straight late budget. They have ranged from minor delays in which policymakers spent a few extra days finalizing details to 100-plus-day impasses<\/a> that stretched county, school and nonprofit finances to the limit. While this year\u2019s delay is comparatively short, the pattern of missed deadlines has frustrated local leaders, who face the consequences of a cutoff in state funds.<\/p>\n

Leading up to the deal, lawmakers said negotiations were running smoothly because they were not taking big policy swings as they had in the past. The lean final product reflects that.<\/p>\n

It does not eliminate a sales tax break given to data centers of a certain size that had increasingly earned bipartisan opposition in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

It also will not legalize recreational marijuana, include new recurring funding for mass transit or boost the state\u2019s minimum wage, as Shapiro and other Democrats had called for. Still, Harris offered: \u201cIt\u2019s a good budget.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also missing from the deal is a regulatory framework and tax on games of skill. A state Supreme Court ruling<\/a> set an October deadline for lawmakers to act before the devices are subject to seizure. Shapiro and other lawmakers support taxing skill games, which have proliferated around the state, and have floated plans they say could raise as much as $2 billion in annual revenue.<\/p>\n

In the aftermath of the court\u2019s ruling, Senate Republicans called addressing skill games a \u201ccritical piece<\/a>\u201d of resolving this year\u2019s budget. However, in an interview with WCCS Radio<\/a> late last month, Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman, R-Indiana, said \u201cfrom a legal standpoint,\u201d lawmakers do not need to act.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe challenge now is that, given the Supreme Court decision, it\u2019s very clear this is gambling. We have to approach this from the perspective of it being some sort of age-restricted environment,\u201d Pittman said, adding: \u201cFinding that balance I think is going to be one of the biggest challenges we have.\u201d<\/p>\n

In February, Shapiro pitched a $53.3 billion budget plan that would have borrowed $1 billion in bonds to fund housing, energy and schooling infrastructure projects, and created a $100 million fund to respond to potential federal government shifts. Neither made it into the final deal.<\/p>\n

Still, the budget embraces an \u201cInnovate in PA 2.0\u201d program proposed by the governor, which will allow the state to sell $125 million in tax credits to insurers. Those dollars then subsidize venture capital firms and fund grants for the life sciences and biotechnology industries.<\/p>\n

The budget\u2019s enabling legislation also restricts the spread of food manufacturing waste on farmland; creates several special tax zones, including one at a Philadelphia shipyard; switches state SNAP benefits to chip cards; and gives the go-ahead for drillers to expand wells that target gas deep underground.<\/p>\n

Some rank-and-file Democrats did not support the deal.<\/p>\n

During debate, state Sen. Nikil Saval, D-Philadelphia, said the budget \u201cdeferred\u201d debates about \u201ccertain critical issues that are at stake for many, many constituents.\u201d He said he opposed the budget because it does not address rising costs of energy, housing or public transit, and it does not include any significant revenue generators.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe these are issues that we cannot defer at this moment, and these are issues that our constituents do not want us to defer,\u201d Saval told his colleagues.<\/p>\n

Inside the education plan<\/p>\n

The budget will allocate an additional $58 million to basic education and $55 million to special education, bringing their respective totals to $8.3 billion and $1.6 billion. It will also transfer $125 million from the Commonwealth Financing Authority to a program for improving school facilities.<\/p>\n

It will drive an additional $565 million to school districts that lawmakers have determined are historically underfunded or have high property tax burdens, which matches Shapiro\u2019s proposal from earlier this year.<\/p>\n

In 2023, Commonwealth Court found the state\u2019s education funding system was unconstitutionally inequitable after a group of advocates, including the Education Law Center and the Public Interest Law Center, sued the state. Lawmakers then passed a 2024-25 fiscal year budget that acknowledged a $4.5 billion adequacy gap<\/a>. With this year\u2019s investment, which matches the amount<\/a> lawmakers allocated in the last budget deal, the Legislature has put $1.9 billion toward closing that disparity.<\/p>\n

Deborah Gordon Klehr, executive director of the Education Law Center, said in a statement that the budget was another step toward \u201cconstitutional compliance\u201d and will make a difference in the lives of students.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut our schools remain billions of dollars short of the funding the General Assembly identified as needed,\u201d Gordon Klehr said. \u201cAnd until every child \u2014 wherever they live \u2014 has access to a well-funded public school, Pennsylvania\u2019s constitutional obligation remains unmet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adding that lawmakers must \u201caccelerate\u201d their plan to comply with the state constitution, Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg, senior attorney at the Public Interest Law Center, noted in a statement that some historically underfunded schools had to make cuts this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe warning signs are clear,\u201d Urevick-Ackelsberg said. \u201cTo provide children the education the constitution demands, we need more teachers and more programs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lawmakers also adopted multiple nonfinancial education policies.<\/p>\n

Public and private schools will be required to provide at least 30 minutes of recess for students in full-day kindergarten through fifth grade, and maintain confidentiality when testing students\u2019 body mass index.<\/p>\n

Public schools will need to perform weekly wellness checks for students enrolled in virtual instruction. Cybercharters are already required<\/a> to do the same, and the provision will tighten the guardrails for how cybers must conduct those checks and add reporting requirements when a student fails to participate.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers are adjusting a policy \u2014 adopted as part of last year\u2019s budget<\/a> \u2014 preventing students who are habitually truant from transferring to a cybercharter during the school year. It will now require that these students\u2019 parents be notified that they can petition for an \u201ceducational best interest hearing\u201d before a district judge. That judge can sign off on a student\u2019s move to a cybercharter if they determine it\u2019s the best educational option.<\/p>\n

Additionally, school districts will have until the end of 2027 to provide the state Department of Education with an inventory of their facilities \u2014 including details about the age, size and purposes of the properties they own or lease, and the grade levels those properties serve.<\/p>\n

The budget does not include funding for a private school voucher program, which was at the center of a debate that triggered<\/a> a major budget impasse in 2023.<\/p>\n

It also lacks \u2014 for the first time in years \u2014 a funding increase for multiple related programs in which the state provides tax breaks to businesses and individuals that donate to scholarships that help students to attend private schools.<\/p>\n

BEFORE YOU GO\u2026 If you learned something from this article, pay it forward and contribute to Spotlight PA at spotlightpa.org\/donate. This story was funded in part thanks to the support of the Lancaster County Local Journalism Fund. Learn more about how we are supported here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan and nonprofit newsroom producing investigative and public-service journalism that holds power to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241975,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2376,227,139,28,30,29,50,1478,432],"class_list":["post-241974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-breaking-news","tag-education","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-politics","tag-spotlight-pa","tag-top-stories-tmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}