This week’s biggest Winners & Losers

Schools are big winners in Shapiro’s budget. His proposal includes an additional $50 million each for Basic Education Funding and for special education. He also wants $565 million more for adequacy and tax equity supplements for the commonwealth’s public schools, which long suffered from inequitable and inadequate state funding.

Given the state’s needs, the budget process can often feel like trying to put out a fire with a squirt gun. Shapiro, who gave a shoutout to first responders during the budget address, put some funding behind his words. The governor proposed investing $16.2 million in four additional Pennsylvania State Police Cadet classes and creating a $30 million grant program for fire companies to seek extra repair funding.

The governor’s speech also hit home. Housing was a major focus for Shapiro, who called on the legislature to pass a raft of reforms to the state’s housing laws to assist tenants and invest in housing development. Among the bills Shapiro gave time to were ones that would set a statewide cap on rental application fees, allow tenants to terminate a lease due to domestic violence, and seal eviction records for people who haven’t actually been evicted, among other changes.

Dark skies may be ahead for Pennsylvania’s Rainy Day Fund. The fund, also known as the Budget Stabilization Reserve Fund, currently holds about $7.4 billion in reserves. However, Shapiro’s budget proposal calls for a $4.5 billion transfer this year to help balance the budget as the state grapples with a structural deficit. State Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman said this week that “it’s going to be a difficult task to not have any conversation about the Rainy Day Fund.”

State Attorney General Dave Sunday announced this week that Rick Goodling, a retired Pennsylvania State Police corporal and former national compliance director for Pace-O-Matic, a leading skill game developer, pleaded guilty to money laundering. The guilty plea comes after an investigation found that Goodling accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments from non-compliant distributors and operators; he also pleaded guilty to tax evasion. Goodling’s plea comes at a time when state lawmakers are considering taxing skill games to generate more state revenue.

For the third straight year, Pennsylvania’s cyber charter schools are losers in the state budget – at least if the governor has his way. The sizable budgets of publicly funded cyber charters have long been criticized by Democratic lawmakers, and Shapiro’s proposal would redirect $250 million in funding from cyber charters to public schools – $75 million more than last year, when $175 million was transferred from online institutions.