Dear Friends,
While most think about a "state budget" in terms of spreadsheets and line items, I think about families. When Congresswoman Madeleine Dean was a Pennsylvania State Representative, I remember her commenting that a budget is a moral document, a statement of values. It both impacts our economic future as a commonwealth and determines how citizens will navigate the coming weeks and years. I’ve always carried that sentiment with me.
In practical terms, this means we need to ask questions like: Can parents find affordable childcare? Can seniors afford their prescriptions? Will someone struggling with a mental health crisis be able to get help? Can a person with a disability access the services they need to live independently?
These questions, and others, are questions that matter and they're exactly what this year's bipartisan state budget works to address, ensuring that everyone in our commonwealth is being served to the best of our ability while being careful stewards of taxpayer dollars.
Helping Families Cope with Rising Costs
Families across Pennsylvania continue to feel the strain of higher prices. Whether it's groceries, prescription medications, utilities, or childcare; everyday necessities are costing more. While much of this is driven by national economic factors, this budget includes several investments designed to make life more affordable for residents here in the commonwealth.
Nearly 950,000 working Pennsylvania families will benefit from the Working Pennsylvanian Tax Credit, putting nearly $200 million back into the pockets of working households. The budget also includes new protections to help control long-term energy costs by requiring large data centers to publicly report their energy and water usage, improving transparency as Pennsylvania prepares for growing electricity demand. It will also encourage utilities to evaluate advanced transmission technologies that can improve grid efficiency, reduce congestion, and potentially lower long-term electricity costs for consumers.
Protecting Seniors
While we have already expanded and continue to expand the Property Tax/Rent Rebate Program, which provides rebates on property taxes or rent paid to eligible seniors, widow or widowers ages 55 to 64, and permanently disabled individuals ages 18 to 64, this budget takes significant additional steps to strengthen economic protections and expand resources for seniors.
This budget increases funding for PACE and PACENET to $155 million so older Pennsylvanians can continue accessing affordable prescription medications. It also strengthens Aging Our Way PA, expands support for the Department of Aging, and increases funding for LIFE to $3.5 million so providers that help seniors can remain safely in their homes and communities.
We also increased support for nursing homes while requiring more of those dollars to go directly toward bedside care and the workers who provide it.
The budget includes a cost-of-living increase for the first time since 2001 for retired public-school teachers, police, firefighters and other state employees for some of the state’s oldest retirees. This will impact more than 80,000 of the commonwealth’s seniors and is something I’ve been supportive of since I first joined the legislature. The increase would be between 15 and 24.5% for qualified retirees. These retirees are on average 81 and 84 years old in the state’s two main pension funds and without a COLA many have faced significant struggles as costs have risen.
Expanding Health Care and Mental Health Services
While 1/3rd of Pennsylvanians have already dropped healthcare coverage through Pennie, the truth is that health care shouldn't depend on your ZIP code or your income. This budget increases funding for Medical Assistance, with a 7% funding increase for Medical Assistance Managed Care Program to $9.4 billion. It also expands services for Pennsylvanians with intellectual disabilities, strengthens children's health coverage, and provides the first ever dedicated state funding for Pennsylvania's 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
When a person reaches out during their darkest moment, someone needs to answer the phone. This budget helps ensure they will. We're investing in crisis stabilization centers so people experiencing mental health emergencies have somewhere to turn before those crises become tragedies, while giving our public safety professionals more tools to connect people with the help they need. These funding allocations will prioritize regions with limited access to immediate, in-person care and seeks to strengthening collaborations among hospitals, community providers, and local responders.
Also included in this year’s budget is increases in funding for rape crisis centers. This ensures that survivors of sexual violence have access to the counseling, advocacy, legal support, and other critical services they need to heal and rebuild their lives. Our crisis centers serve around 6,000 children and 20,000 adults each year and last year’s budget impasse meant that many services were cut and staff laid off when these centers didn’t receive the support they needed.
The budget invests $2.5 million to expand Pennsylvania's Nurse Shortage Assistance Program, helping address the critical shortage of nurses across the Commonwealth.
The program provides grants to qualified nursing schools and their hospital partners to recruit and retain future nurses. It helps students transition into the workforce by supporting employment opportunities after graduation and assisting with repayment of the student loans they incurred while earning their nursing degrees.
Senator Maria Collett has been a leading advocate for strengthening Pennsylvania's nursing workforce, championing policies that improve staffing levels and support nurses throughout their careers.
The budget also includes funding to reduce tuition costs for Pennsylvania students pursuing degrees in optometry, helping make eye care careers more accessible while addressing workforce needs in another critical healthcare profession.
Supporting Children and Families
Supporting children and families means supporting the adults who care for them and ensuring the workforce that serves children and families has the resources needed to succeed.
Building on last year's creation of the Child Care Staff Recruitment and Retention Program, this budget increases funding for the program by 20%, helping childcare providers recruit qualified teachers, retain experienced staff, and keep classrooms open so working families have access to reliable, affordable care.
The budget also invests in early learning by providing an additional $3.75 million for Pennsylvania Pre-K Counts and approximately $1 million more for the Head Start Supplemental Assistance Program. Pre-K Counts will receive a 1.1% increase that raises the per-student reimbursement rate and helps expand access to high-quality pre-kindergarten.
These investments support not only children, but also Pennsylvania's workforce by making it easier for parents to remain employed while knowing their children are in safe, high-quality learning environments.
The budget also strengthens child welfare and early intervention services. It provides a 3.3% increase for County Child Welfare to help protect vulnerable children and support families in crisis. Funding for the subsidized childcare program is maintained at $422.5 million, ensuring continued access to affordable care for thousands of families. In addition, the budget invests $494.5 million in Early Intervention services for children from birth to age three, a 9.1% increase, so children with developmental delays or disabilities can receive critical services as early as possible, improving outcomes for years to come.
To improve Pennsylvania's child protection system, the budget invests $658,000 in additional ChildLine staff and enhanced training, allowing caseworkers to spend more time carefully evaluating reports and connecting them to the appropriate county or agency for follow up.
Protecting Benefits from Fraud
For too long, criminals have targeted vulnerable Pennsylvanians by stealing SNAP benefits through card-skimming schemes, leaving families without the money they depend on to put food on the table. In 2024 alone, nearly $16 million in SNAP benefits was stolen from food-insecure Pennsylvanians.
This budget takes an important step to stop that theft by investing $7 million to replace outdated magnetic-stripe EBT cards with secure, chip-enabled cards that are far more difficult to clone or compromise. The change will help ensure food assistance reaches the families it was intended to serve.
The initiative grew out of House Bill 2540, sponsored by Rep. Dan Williams, which I co-sponsored, and was ultimately enacted through the Fiscal Code. Adopting chip-enabled EBT cards allows Pennsylvania to qualify for a 50% federal funding match, reducing the cost of implementation while strengthening protections for families who rely on SNAP benefits.
Budgets are about priorities. I'm proud this one invests in the health, dignity, and security of Pennsylvanians while remaining balanced, preserving our Rainy Day Fund, and continuing House Democrats' priority of lowering taxes while serving all residents.
In my next email, I'll discuss how this budget supports local jobs, strengthens public safety, invests in our communities, and prepares Pennsylvania for the future.