Madison Kwiecinski 

News Editor 

Mvk5945@psu.edu 

Governor Tom Wolf recently gave his final budget speech before the General Assembly, and is currently attempting to designate his final set of priorities in the new Budget before vacating the Governor’s office. During his time as Governor, Wolf has dramatically increased the fiscal responsibility of Pennsylvania, and is now trying to create long-lasting impacts through key budget priorities. 

Governor Wolf is the first Pennsylvania Governor since Dick Thornburgh, who left office in 1987, to leave the Governor’s office with a budget surplus available for their predecessor. Wolf has also dramatically increased the state’s “rainy day fund” since taking office. 

“These are days of opportunity for our commonwealth,” Wolf said. “That’s because, at long last, our fiscal house is in order. Over the past seven years, we’ve turned a $2-3 billion structural budget deficit into a $2-3 billion budget surplus. We’ve built our Rainy Day Fund to more than $2.8 billion—more than 12,000 times what it was when I took office.”

Wolf has set aside major provisions for students and good jobs in his recent budget. Over the last seven years, the number of children enrolled in Pre-K programs in PA has more than doubled, and Wolf is proposing more investments in this area. He has designated a $60 million increase for Pre-K Counts, which should allow more than 2,300 more young children to receive early childhood education. He also has designated an additional $10 million increase for the Head Start Supplemental Program in order to assist with the rising costs 

Wolf is also contributing a large amount of funding to grades K-12 in public education. Wolf is proposing a “generational investment” of $1.4 billion in public K-12 schools. According to Wolf’s plan, 16.5 percent of state funding should be designated to basic education funding. Wolf has also proposed $300 million for the Level Up initiative which launched last year and is meant to support the 100 most underfunded schools in the state. The budget also includes a $200 million increase for Special Education and $373 million in savings due to common sense charter school accountability reform. 

“We can afford to invest a whole lot more in the Fair Funding Formula without raising one penny in state taxes, and we can afford to do it without asking any school district, anywhere in Pennsylvania, to sacrifice one penny in state funding,” Wolf said.

Higher Education has also received funding increases to encourage higher education and limit student debt. Wolf has proposed  $200 million in spending for the Nellie Bly Tuition Program for students attending a PA state college or community college. Another $150 million in one-time funding through the American Rescue Plan Act funds in order to support the PA State System of Higher Education to support redesign and tuition freezing, as well as increased student aid. Additionally a $125 million investment was made for higher education. 

Wolf’s budget proposal would increase funding at Penn State University by at least five percent. There are also funding provisions put in place to contribute $2.35 million in new funding for a Penn State Program called Invent Penn State. PSU says that the funding increase applies to PSUs general support appropriations which allows for in-state tuition rates, which benefits around 45,000 Pennsylvanian students each year. The PSU funding will also support the Penn State Agriculture Research and Cooperative Extension and Pennsylvania College of Technology.

The governor’s budget proposal still requires the approval of the PA General Assembly in order to be a part of the state’s final budget, which will be done in late June. If the budget is approved, this will be the first funding increase Penn State has received since a 2 percent budget increase for the 2019-2020 academic year, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.