I’m coming to you with some really good news: last night, the PA General Assembly passed and Gov. Shapiro signed a bipartisan budget for the fiscal year 2024-2025. This budget includes a $56.5 million investment in community-based gun violence interruption programs, a $16.5 million increase over last year’s budget.1
This means more money for successful gun violence prevention programs in large and small cities across the Commonwealth. In 2024, gun violence in Philadelphia decreased by forty percent,2 due in no small part to community initiatives, and this year’s investment increase keeps us on an upward trajectory.
But these investments don’t just benefit big cities – they target violent crime in communities all over Pennsylvania. Promise Neighborhoods of the Lehigh Valley3 received a grant in last year’s budget. Their program Zero Youth Violence goes into the streets of Allentown to interrupt conflicts and mentor at-risk youth, channeling their energy and frustration into positive activities, rather than engaging with deadly weapons. As their Executive Director, Dr. Hasshan Batts said, “each dollar is a down payment on the lives and wellbeing of Pennsylvanians making it through a crisis and then thriving”.
We are pleased that the legislature recognized the life-saving success of programs like these and made the right decision to increase state funding for them. Of course, compromises were made and there are still many provisions to fight for.
In 2023, the Montgomery County Sheriff’s office created a replicable model for investigating gun dealers who sell weapons used in crimes.4 In this budget, Gov. Shapiro proposed investing $1.5 million to make this a statewide program, targeting the one percent of dealers responsible for fifty percent of recovered crime guns,5 but the legislature refused to fund it.
But, we refuse to let the perfect become the enemy of the good. We applaud the progress made in this budget, and vow to continue pushing for a fully funded agenda to end gun violence in our Commonwealth.
