Phillips-Hill: New Law Will Protect Tax Dollars from Abuse, End Favoritism in State Contracts

HARRISBURG - A new law will put strict limits on procurement contracts to safeguard taxpayers in Pennsylvania, according to Sen. Kristin Phillips-Hill (R-York), who authored the measure.

"Over the last several years, we have seen state contracts include language that would tilt the playing field to benefit a specific vendor or contractor," Phillips-Hill said. "Thanks to Attorney General Sunday identifying this shortcoming in our state procurement code, we were able to work in a swift, bipartisan manner to eliminate biased terms that makes our procurement and contracting process fairer in the future."

Phillips-Hill points to the passage of the bill in both the Republican-controlled Senate and Democratic-controlled House of Representatives with unanimous support as a good government bill that everyone can rally behind.

Under the new law, commonwealth parties are prohibited from signing purchasing or procurement contracts that contain out of state legal disputes, indemnification clauses, non-Pennsylvania governing law, or binding arbitration. Additionally, the new law will require state contracts remain bound by Pennsylvania law and decided in Pennsylvania courts.

"Right or left, I think Attorney General Sunday found a flaw in our law that we needed to change to ensure fairness, uniformity, and, most importantly, protection of taxpayer dollars when it comes to the thousands of procurement contracts entered into by state government," she added. "I'm grateful my colleagues reached bipartisan consensus to make these commonsense reforms to our laws governing our procurement process."

Senate Bill 1410 was signed into law this week as Act 114 of 2026. The new law goes into effect on Dec. 21.

You can watch Sen. Phillips-Hill's remarks before the Senate on Senate Bill 1410 here.