On Tuesday, February 5, 2019, Governor Wolf delivered his proposed state budget to the General Assembly. The 2019-20 budget proposal of $34.15 billion proposal reveals a 2.8% increase, or $927.3 million, including increases in the basic education subsidy and special education line items. The governor’s proposed budget includes: 

• A $200 million increase in new basic education funding, as well as $241.9 million, which had been previously appropriated as the Ready to Learn Block Grant, now being added to each school district’s base amount under the basic education funding formula. From the $200 million in new funds, $18 million would fund school districts who received increased Ready to Learn Block Grant funds in the 2018-19 fiscal year; $13.9 million would be used to increase the minimum starting salary of teachers and other education professionals (including counselors and school nurses), to at least $45,000 per year. In light of these adjustments, only about $168 million in new money would be run through the BEF formula.
• The proposed budget also provides a 4.4% increase of $50 million to a total of $1.18 billion. The increase would be distributed through the special education funding formula. The governor also recommended that $300,000 of the 2019-20 special education appropriation be used for Keystone Telepresence Education Grants and allocated to intermediate units to purchase equipment to help children with serious illnesses or injuries to attend school using telepresence technologies.
• The career and technical education governor’s budget includes a $10 million increase for those programs. Also, the funding for Career and Technical Education Equipment Grants remains level at $2.5 million.
• Funding for state and federal testing programs, including PSSAs and the Keystone Exams, would get a $1 million increase for a total of $50.4 million.
• The budget provides $5.95 million for teacher professional development, an increase of $650,000.
• Funding for pupil transportation would be level-funded at $549 million.
• The governor’s proposed budget provides $45 million for the School Safety and Security Fund.
• The governor’s budget provides an additional $160.5 million (6.45 %) increase to $2.6 billion to cover the state’s share of school retiree pension costs.
• Early intervention programming would receive a $15 million increase, Pre-K Counts would receive a $40 million increase, and the Head Start Supplemental Assistance Program would receive a $10 million increase. 

Lastly, the proposed budget recommends lowering the compulsory school attendance age from eight to six years old. Similarly, the budget seeks a mandated study on the effectiveness of lowering the compulsory age of school attendance to five years old and to provide information regarding universal access to full-day kindergarten for all children. The budget also recommends raising the state’s minimum dropout age for compulsory school attendance from 17 to 18 years old.

Thanks to PSBA for providing information used in this article.