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Weekly Recap – Week of July 14, 2025

Jul 18, 2025

Weekly Wrap

The House of Representatives and Senate were both in Session this week, with the House holding voting session on Monday. Nevertheless it was a busy day, as the House amended HB 1330 (Harris, D-Philadelphia) with a new version of the state budget and sent it to the Senate for consideration. This version represents a 6% increase over the 2024-2025 Fiscal Year, coming in at $50.6 billion. However, this is $900 million less than the Governor’s proposed budget of $51.5 billion.

Among others, the House budget includes the following cuts from Governor Shapiro’s proposed budget:

  • $100 million cut for cyber charter school transition;
  • $86 million cut for community and economic assistance under DCED’s current levels;
  • $18 million cut for Medical Assistance long term living;
  • $50 million cut for local municipality relief;
  • $17 million cut for hospital emergency relief;
  • $20 million cut for state parks; and
  • $13 million cut for state forests.

The House is not set to return to Harrisburg until September 22; however, budget discussions continue and right now the only certainty is that date may change.

In non-budget news, the House passed two bills of note. They will head to the Senate for their consideration:

  • HB 1407(Nelson, D-Montgomery), which would establish new grade spans and age levels for instructional certificates;
  • HB 1466(Cephas, D-Philadelphia), which would require face-to-face counseling by an approved financial counselor before an applicant can begin a reverse mortgage process.

The Senate convened on Wednesday afternoon, and the first order of business was to hold an Appropriations Committee meeting and adopt an amendment (A01564, Martin, R-Lancaster) that completely gutted House Bill 1330 and left in only a $11 million dollar line item for rape crisis programs. But it puts the bill in position to be used as a vehicle for the budget moving forward.

The Senate Health and Human Services Committee reported out one bill of note: HB 1527 (Davidson, D-Dauphin), which extends the Pennsylvania Rare Disease Advisory Council’s sunset date 3 years to June 30, 2028.

The Senate Labor & Industry Committee reported out HB 274 (Dawkins, D-Philadelphia), which adds unemployment compensation protections for employees in domestic violence situations.

The following bills were passed by the Senate and now head to the House for their consideration:

  • SB 398(Brooks, R-Crawford), which would allow fire companies that have a valid small games of chance license to conduct two online raffles a year;
  • SB 416(Robinson, R-Allegheny), which would allow licensed eligible organizations to accept payment via credit card, debit card, mobile payment service, or other electronic payment methods for small games of chance;
  • SB 604(Boscola, D-Lehigh, which would authorize Pennsylvania to join the National Counseling Compact;
  • SB 877(Pennycuick, R-Berks), which would make the Barber Training Through Career and Technical Center Pilot Program permanent; and
  • SB 878(Pennycuick, R-Berks), which would make the Cosmetology Training Through Career and Technical Education Pilot Program permanent.

The Senate stands at Recess until the call of the chair, with no known date for return.

A Look Ahead

No committee meetings are scheduled for next week as of yet, since neither chamber has scheduled session days at this time.  Meetings may be posted here if budget talks heat up and legislators are called back to Harrisburg.

In Other News

There was plenty of other news out of the Commonwealth this week, as U.S. Senator Dave McCormick hosted the first Energy and Innovation Summit at Carnegie Mellon University on Tuesday.  President Trump and Governor Shapiro joined legislators and political and industry leaders to showcase investments being made in energy and technology, putting PA at the forefront of the AI boom.  Investments in data centers, energy, infrastructure, and AI projects totaling over $90 billion were announced, making the Keystone State the keystone of the nation’s energy and AI development. Homer City Redevelopment, National Fuel Gas, PA Data Center Partners, PPL Corporation, as well as EQT all announced projects and investments in conjunction with the event.

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