Pennsylvania has a 2025-26 budget, but that budget doesn’t have the support of Rep. Kathy Rapp, R-Warren.

The budget passed the House 156-47, with Rapp voting against the spending plan. Senate approval was 40-9, with Sen. Scott Hutchinson, R-Oil City, and Sen. Michele Brooks, R-Greenville and one of the area’s former state senators, voting against the budget.

“It is the General Assembly’s most fundamental obligation to pass a fiscally responsible budget plan by June 30,” Rapp said in a statement. “We failed the latter half of that obligation more than four months ago. Now, I can say we failed the former half, too. The budget deal that passed today accounts for more than $50 billion in spending for the current fiscal year. That’s nearly a 5% increase over last year’s spending, totaling more than $2.2 billion. The total spending wouldn’t be a problem if we had the money to pay for it, but that’s simply not the case.”

Senate Republicans said the $50.1 billion budget approved by the Senate and the House cuts nearly $1.4 billion in spending from Gov. Josh Shapiro’s initial budget proposal, uses billions of dollars in previously unused funding rather than the state’s Rainy Day Fund and eliminated the state’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

Shapiro’s office touted more than $900 million in additional funding for pre-K through 12th grade education and reforms to Pennsylvania’s cyber charter reimbursement system that he said would save public schools an additional $175 million. The $900 million in additional school funding includes $565 million in new adequacy funding to expand support to all school districts across Pennsylvania and a $105 million increase for Basic Education Funding, a $40 million increase for special education funding and changes to Pennsylvania’s cyber charter school law that align tuition payments with the actual cost of providing an online education, add new allowable deductions for costs not incurred by cyber charters, and close loopholes that inflated payments.

The budget also includes Expanded access to school meals, providing universal free breakfast for more than 1.7 million students and free lunch for 22,000 eligible students, with nearly 93 million breakfasts served during the 2024-25 school year — a 13.8 percent increase over two years — including over 70 million meals for students at risk of hunger or from low-income families.

The budget also creates a new Working Pennsylvanians Tax Credit – a state-level Earned Income Tax Credit – that will provide $193 million in tax relief for working families in its first year. Nearly one million Pennsylvanians will qualify.

Lawmakers also approved a $21 million investment to increase direct support professional wages for those who provide services to adults with physical disabilities and seniors. The funding includes a wage increase, paid time off, and increases access to affordable insurance for 8,500 workers.

The budget includes an $11 million increase for food security, including $3 million for the State Food Purchase Program and $1 million for the Pennsylvania Agricultural Surplus System; $2 million for a new State Food Bucks program to supplement SNAP; and $5 million in new funding to Pennsylvania food banks.

Rapp said the budget is still too expensive and spends too much of the state’s surplus to pay for new spending in the budget even though she did support some of the Republican-backed items in the budget.

“This plan robs the General Fund surplus to fill the gap in revenue,” Rapp said. “That’s not sustainable governing. Most of the money we’re allocating in this budget will be expected next year, but that money taken out from the General Fund surplus will not magically reappear. That means we would either need to make cuts or raise taxes moving forward. While I voted against the General Appropriations bill, I did support several major policy changes in the Fiscal Code, including a repeal of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and steps to ensure benefit integrity. I also supported the Human Services Code and the PACE/PACENET program to solidify critical services for seniors. However, these sensible policy decisions don’t change the fact that the budget deal simply spends too much money. The people and businesses of Warren, Forest and Crawford counties are expected to operate with a balanced budget. Our commonwealth should, too.”