HERSHEY, Pa. (WHTM) – Governor Shapiro was at the Pennsylvania State Police Academy in Hershey to outline the millions of dollars in spending for public safety and state police.

The investments come at a time when the state is facing a shortage of more than 1,200 municipal officers, combined with the need for more troopers.

“I’ve proposed a $2,500 person income tax credit for new police officers, along with new teachers and nurses to other fields where we see significant shortages,” said Shapiro.

The tax credit covers both municipal and state police and is applied to officers who already have their certification and move to Pennsylvania.

Law enforcement officers hope that’s enough to attract people to the field.

“When I took the test in 1994, I took it with 10,000 people for about 300 jobs,” said David Kennedy, President of the PA State Troopers Association. “Right now, in our last testing cycle, we had 1,000 people sign up to take the test and only 700 showed up for, again, right around 250-300 jobs.”

Also in the budget, de-coupling State Police funding from gas tax revenues. Governor Shapiro says $500 million a year is diverted from money that should pay for roads and bridges. Shapiro would drop that to $100 million and make up the difference by putting it in the state budget.

“It’s frankly foolish that we have forced the critically important aspect of infrastructure funding and the obvious critically important aspect of State Police funding to compete with one another, it’s gone on for too long, and it ends on my watch,” said Shapiro.

“We maintain a very close relationship with PennDOT but to not compete for those motor license fund dollars and to have a dedicated funding source, really takes a huge weight off the agency,” said Colonel Christopher Paris, Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner.