2018-19 State Budget Recap: Investments in Kids Get Top Priority
Days ahead
of the June 30 deadline, legislators in Harrisburg have passed a state
budget for FY 2018-19. Receiving wide bipartisan support in both the
House and Senate, the $32.7 billion package was signed Friday evening by
Gov. Wolf and makes several critical investments that will positively
impact the Commonwealth’s 2.8 million children.
More
specifically, the investments across PPC’s top policy priorities include
an increase of $100 million for basic education funding driven out
through the basic education funding formula, a $15 million increase for
special education, and a total increase of $30 million for career and
technical education. Those dollars will be allocated to both the base
formula for career and technical education as well as an initiative to
expand apprenticeship and industry partnerships in the Departments of
Labor and Industry and Education.
On the
early learning side, pre-k funding received a $25 million funding
increase, with $20 million going to the Pre-K Counts Program and $5
million going to the Head Start Supplemental Assistance Program.
Additionally, child care funding received just over a $6.7 million
increase to address the Child Care Works waiting list.
Home
visiting services also saw a substantial increase in funding, receiving
an additional $6.7 million in state dollars. These funds will be used
for training for child welfare, treatment and home visiting staff, and a
long-overdue COLA for Nurse Family Partnership and Family
Centers-Parents as Teachers programs. This important increase builds on
the state’s past investment and expands resources to help 800 families
suffering from the ravages of the opioid crisis to improve their
capacity to raise their young children.
It is
noteworthy that the overall spending increase for the budget is 1.7
percent in state funds. This makes the meaningful increases realized,
particularly in areas such as home visiting (combined 33 percent state
increase) and pre-k (combined 11 percent state increase), more laudable.
In
addition to the budget bill, also referred to as the general
appropriations bill, the legislature also passed accompanying school
code, human services code and fiscal code bills. These bills
historically serve as a guide on how to direct the appropriations
contained in the budget, but also occasionally contain other policy
matters. This year the codes largely stayed clear of policy debates with
a few exceptions, including extending the moratorium for the Keystone
exam graduation requirement to the 2020-21 school year (it was
previously set to take effect for the 2019-20 school year) and
prescribes details of a flexible grant program for school districts to
address school safety concerns. The budget allocates $60 million (likely
in the form of grants) for school safety initiatives.
The
relatively early passage of the budget is a change in course when
compared to the previous three state budgets, which all missed the June
30 deadline, in some instances by months. A positive turn in revenue
coming into the state coupled with it being an election year helped make
the negotiations progress more smoothly for FY 2018-19. The agreement
also includes no new revenue streams to balance the budget.
The
victories contained in the FY 2018-19 budget wouldn’t happen without
you. We thank you, our partners, for working to ensure that kids remain
the focus of policymakers as they put together the budget deal.
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