Gov. Josh Shapiro is seeking to settle a long-running budget problem in Pennsylvania: how to pay for the state police without drawing down money intended for roads and bridges. His first budget proposal as governor, a Democrat, would create a new restricted account for the agency.
Right now, about $900 million of the State Police's roughly $1.4 billion budget comes from the general fund. The remainder comes from the Motor License Fund, which is fed by the state gas tax and is primarily meant for infrastructure. Under Shapiro's plan, those transfers from the Motor License Fund would end.
The new account, called the Public Safety and Protection Fund, would not be part of annual budget negotiations between the governor and the legislature. By law, a set amount of tax revenue would flow into it each year automatically. "The pledge I've made to our state troopers is that that money would be set aside and walled off only for law enforcement," Shapiro said recently in Erie.
Legislative Democrats back the idea, and some see an added benefit. Creating the fund would require a new law, which could also include a long-sought mandate for state and local police to collect racial data from traffic stops. State police stopped gathering such data for nearly a decade. State Rep. Donna Bullock, a Philadelphia Democrat who chairs the Legislative Black Caucus, said a requirement written with state police is an option, adding that progress comes more often through cooperation than through "threats of the purse."
Some Republican lawmakers object, saying this kind of "autopilot" budgeting makes state finances less flexible and less transparent. State Rep. Seth Grove of York County, the top Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, questioned where it would stop, asking at a March briefing whether the state would simply assign fixed shares of the budget to major areas and let everyone else fight over the remainder.
Special funds themselves are common. Lawmakers have created more than 150 of them, financed by taxes, fines or fees, and they account for about three of every 10 state dollars spent each year, more than $20 billion last year. A 2019 Urban Institute report found restricted spending grew from 2000 to 2015 in the six states it studied, and warned that such protections create a block of priorities against which unprotected options must compete.
Pennsylvania has relied on gas tax money for state police for decades. A major gas tax increase in 2013 under then-Gov. Tom Corbett, a Republican, drew attention to the transfers as an obstacle to addressing deferred maintenance. In 2016, lawmakers capped the annual transfer, aiming for $500 million by 2026, a figure they have reached. Further cuts have proved difficult. Republicans repeatedly rejected former Gov. Tom Wolf's idea of charging municipalities that depend solely on state police, saying it would tax rural communities twice.
Shapiro's budget would phase out the transfers over five years, preserving $1.5 billion in gas tax revenue for roads and bridges. This year, it asks lawmakers to move about $1 billion in existing sales tax revenue from vehicles, liquor, e-cigarettes and other tobacco products, plus $400 million from the Motor License Fund, into the new account. The Motor License Fund contribution would fall to zero by the 2027-28 fiscal year. His administration has not said how it would replace that money, and says the source is open for negotiation. His budget also proposes a 20% tax on recreational marijuana starting Jan. 1, 2025, with revenue going to the general fund.
Richard Auxier, a tax policy analyst at the Urban Institute, said dedicated funding can build political consensus, but it also ties tax decisions to the programs they support. If revenue falls short in a given year, lawmakers must either leave police underfunded or move money from elsewhere. House Appropriations Chair Jordan Harris, a Philadelphia Democrat, said freeing up money is necessary to match federal dollars from the 2021 infrastructure law, which generally requires states and localities to cover at least 20% of project costs. The Pennsylvania State Police Troopers Association, which represents 4,400 troopers, also backs the plan for the predictability it would bring.
