| Dear Neighbor, I hope you are well! I wanted to take this opportunity to update you on several happenings in the district as well as Harrisburg.
As always, I hope you find this informative and useful.
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| We are now in the final week of budget hearings, wrapping up tomorrow with the Governor’s Budget office at 10 a.m. Since my last email, we’ve heard from the Judiciary branch of the Pennsylvania government as well as State-Related Universities, the Department of Transportation, State Police, the Department of Education, and the Department of Human Services to discuss their budget proposals and answer questions from the Appropriations Committee.
The Chief Justice of Pennsylvania Debra Todd spoke on the need for investment in Judiciary’s IT security to protect against cyber-attacks. The Presidents of Penn State University, University of Pittsburgh, Temple University, and Lincoln University advocated for stronger investments in higher education while the Department of Transportation highlight the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and how beneficial those dollars are with state funds to expand passenger rail and train corridors throughout Pennsylvania.
The Department of Education spoke at length about the Governor’s proposal to invest over $1 billion in our basic education fund to fix the adequacy gap our schools are facing. This investment will start the ball rolling in Pennsylvania to comply with the Commonwealth Court’s ruling that declared Pennsylvanian’s system of funding public education to be unconstitutional.
While the budget hearings are almost over, budget negotiations will continue in Harrisburg as we head toward our due date of June 30. If you have any questions about the budget process or what was discussed, please contact my office at [email protected] and either myself or my staff will get back to you!
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