Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility Conklin: Proposed budget spends responsibly to help students and working families

Conklin: Proposed budget spends responsibly to help students and working families

Rep. Scott Conklin    February 3, 2026 | 4:46 PM

HARRISBURG, Feb. 3 – State Rep. Scott Conklin issued the following statement in response to Gov. Josh Shapiro’s budget speech today:

“The governor’s plan makes sense to me because it focuses on helping working families thrive, boosting jobs, and strengthening our public schools – all without raising taxes.

“Housing makes up the largest part of a family’s household budget, but finding a safe, affordable place to live remains a challenge for too many residents. To address the housing shortage, the new budget would create a $1 billion critical infrastructure fund, which would issue bonds to fund housing and infrastructure projects. The proposed plan would also implement reforms to help renters, including a statewide cap on rental application fees, and protections for residents of manufactured mobile home communities.

“To help working families make ends meet, the proposed budget would raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour. The commonwealth has not raised the wage from $7.25 an hour since 2009 – even as all our neighboring states have raised theirs. It’s time to pay PA workers what they’re worth.

“The proposed budget would continue robust investments in our public schools, providing increases of $50 million each for basic education and special education and an increase of more than $550 million in equity funding to help us level the playing field for students in historically underfunded districts. Schools in our district would see across-the-board increases. Beyond the curriculum, the proposed spending plan would continue to fund programs for student safety, mental health, and school facility improvements, including funding the Solar for Schools program.

“To strengthen higher education, the budget would fund the Performance-Based Funding Council, which establishes a new formula for investments in Penn State, Pitt, and Temple.

“Finally, the proposed plan would boost jobs by increasing funding for child care recruitment and retention, teacher professional development and student teacher stipends, and career and technical education and vocational rehabilitation.

“To be sure – no budget is perfect. But with its focus on boosting education, creating new jobs and making life more affordable, the new plan promises to take us down the right path.”

A video clip of Conklin discussing the proposed budget is available here: 020326 Conklin Budget.mp4?