What the Proposed 2025-26 State Budget Means for PA Kids and Families
Governor Shapiro’s proposed 2025-26 budget totals $51.5 billion, a 7.5% increase over last year’s budget. The proposal contains several bright spots for Pennsylvania’s children and families, including meaningful increases for child care and pre-k. However, this is tempered by level funding or minimal increases in areas like career and technical education (CTE), home visiting and the Head Start Supplemental Assistance Program (HSSAP).
Investments for Children and Families in the Proposed 2025-26 Pennsylvania Budget
Learn more by exploring the investments by policy area.
Early Care and Education
Pre-k
The budget proposal includes an increase of $17 million for pre-k programs: $17 million for Pre-K Counts and flat funding for the Head Start Supplemental Assistance Program (HSSAP). The proposed increase for Pre-K Counts will increase full-time students’ rates to $11,000 (up from $10,500) and part-time students to $5,500 (up from $5,250). Increased rates for pre-k programs will help support the early care and education workforce and ease inflationary costs for providers. Given broader federal attention on Head Start, PPC will work with its partners to ensure adequate investments to maintain these critical services.
Child Care
The proposal includes a new budget line item funded at $55 million to create a recruitment and retention fund that will provide each licensed child care employee participating in the subsidy program approximately $1,000 per year. Last year’s budget contained increased funds for rates in the Child Care Works program and additional tax credits for child care expenses. We are grateful that this year’s budget addresses supply-side issues faced by the early care and education sector. Additional details on the program and driving out any funding will likely be negotiated in any budget-related code bills.
Perinatal and Child Health
Medicaid and CHIP
Governor Shapiro’s 2025-26 budget proposal includes a $6.7 million budgetary net decrease for CHIP, a 6.3% decrease from last year. This decrease is due to funds allocated in 2024-25 to cover CHIP arrearages that are no longer required this fiscal year. As the number of children enrolled in CHIP continues to increase, PPC will continue to advocate for the state to maintain this important health insurance coverage.
The proposed Medical Assistance capitation line item includes a net increase of $659 million to fund Pennsylvania’s Medicaid program. This total budget increase includes increased funding to include changes in enrollment and rate increases. PPC will continue to monitor to ensure this funding includes the cost of continuous health care coverage for kids from birth to age 6.
Early Intervention
The budget proposal includes an increase of $16.2 million for the Early Intervention Part C (infants and toddlers) program in the DHS budget, $10 million of which will be used to increase provider rates. The PDE budget’s Early Intervention Part B (ages three to five) program includes a proposed increase of $14.5 million to continue the current program. PPC advocates for support of the Early Intervention Part C program as part of the Thriving PA campaign. Thriving PA is hopeful there will be further dialogue to address the need for additional support for Early Intervention, while noting significantly more dollars are needed to adequately deliver Part C EI to children in Pennsylvania.
Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)
Consistent with last year’s budget, federal funding in the WIC budget in the Department of Health is $277.9 million. This funding connects women and children to nutritious food and nutrition counseling services. WIC is a vital part of Thriving PA, where PPC and our partners work with the administration to modernize the system and increase participation.
Separate from nutrition but also in the DOH budget, there is level funding to continue capacity building within the department to implement prevention strategies for preventing maternal deaths and complications. Governor Shapiro also called for DOH to expand screening efforts to identify postpartum depression and ensure timely and equitable interventions. PPC and Thriving PA have been monitoring the implementation of Pennsylvania’s first Perinatal TiPS consultation line, which would allow medical providers to connect with psychiatry consultation teams. We will closely monitor the implementation timeline and work to ensure DOH has the funding to continue the program.
Home Visiting
The proposed budget level funds the Community-Based Family Centers line and does not account for the loss of federal funds expiring in June nor the continued rising costs of providing these life-changing services. Without any assurance that the state will account for rising costs and backfill federal dollars, this ultimately will mean fewer home visiting services for Pennsylvania families impacted by economic and social disparities. PPC advocates for evidence-based home visiting services through the Childhood Begins at Home Campaign and continues to be disappointed in the lack of support for home visitors and the families they serve. The Nurse-Family Partnership line item also contains a small reduction as a result of changes to the federal matching rate.
Child Welfare
The county child welfare budget proposal provides level funding, totaling $1.49 billion in state investments. There could be a variety of reasons for this level funding request. PPC is working with stakeholders to determine next steps to advocate for adequate funding for county child welfare offices.
K-12
Basic and Special Education
The proposed budget includes a total increase of over $600 million for K-12 education: $526 million as the second adequacy investment via the Ready to Learn Block Grant and $75 million to be distributed through the Basic Education Funding Formula. The targeted adequacy funding will continue to be distributed to the most underfunded schools. Additionally, the governor’s proposal calls for an additional $40 million for Special Education.
Career and Technical Education
Last year’s budget contained a small increase for career and technical education (CTE), which was remedied by a historic investment of $30 million pushed by the General Assembly. This year, the budget proposal contains an increase of $5.5 million for CTE through the CTE subsidy line. Governor Shapiro did not propose any increased funds for the CTE equipment grant line.
School Food Services
The budget proposal includes an additional $10 million to continue universal free breakfast in schools. Continuing the free school breakfast program will help children reach their full potential, as research shows that having a nutritious breakfast promotes better academic performance. PPC is pleased that the universal free breakfast program will be maintained as we see the benefit of universal school meals. We hope future budgets contain increased funding for universal school lunches.
Other Initiatives: School Safety, Mental Health, and Student Teacher Assistance
The budget seeks to build upon previous investments by proposing an additional $111 million for school security and student mental health funding as well as $25 million for facilities improvement, specifically for the Solar for Schools grant program. In addition, the proposal seeks to double the existing funding for the student teacher stipend program to bring total funding to $40 million.