For Louis Lepley, superintendent of the North Star School District, attracting and retaining teachers in his rural Somerset County district can be a tall task.

“You can’t blame them, we’re not one of the higher paying districts in the state, and when [teachers] get that experience then we see a lot of them leave,” Lepley said. “And hats off to them--unless they have local ties, there’s a good chance they’re leaving.”

A boost in funding for education, expanding initiatives to target the state’s workforce development, and a previously announced minimum wage hike are cornerstones of Gov. Tom Wolf’s 2019-20 budget proposal, unveiled Tuesday in the first budget address of the governor’s second term.

Wolf’s plan spends a little over $34 billion, a 2.79 percent increase from last year, but adds in no new taxes, something he touted early and often throughout his address and was a line which drew a bipartisan standing ovation. 

Advocates are calling for more of an investment in career and technical education (CTE) in the upcoming budget, and lawmakers say they are optimistic Gov. Tom Wolf will agree when he unveils his proposal next month.

A report released by the Pennsylvania Partnership for Children earlier last week praised the introduction of the Career and Technical Education Subsidy in the last budget but argued that school districts were still footing too much of the bill and that more state support is needed.

Gov. Tom Wolf hosted a press conference Thursday afternoon where he highlighted the ways he has worked to improve Pennsylvania through economic development. 

Wolf highlighted the three main ways he has focused on to help move the commonwealth forward including, modernizing and improving Pennsylvania's education system, investing in community and economic development and prioritizing investments in infrastructure. 

A lawsuit that could overturn Pennsylvania’s school funding is tentatively scheduled to go to trial in summer 2020.

The suit, filed by six Pennsylvania families, six school districts, the NAACP and the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools claims that the commonwealth’s current school funding system violates a state constitutional guarantee to an education.