HARRISBURG - Gov. Josh Shapiro will deliver his first budget to the Legislature on Tuesday, as the Democrat aims in his first months to remake the state’s public school funding system and to put Pennsylvania on competitive footing with other states to attract major companies.

Shapiro has been touring the state speaking to business audiences, promising to be a cheerleader for the nation’s No. 2 natural gas state and to ensure state government speeds along permits to businesses seeking to hire, dig or build.

One big Shapiro campaign promise is to cut Pennsylvania’s sky-high corporate income tax rate by more than half within two years as Pennsylvania competes for a federally funded hydrogen hub and tries to attract the kind of multibillion-dollar battery plants and microchip factories landing in other states.

Shapiro also is vowing to make a “down payment” on the billions of dollars that public school advocates say are necessary to fix disparities between poor and wealthy school districts in Pennsylvania. Watching closely will be the school districts that won a landmark court decision last month that said the state’s public schools funding system is violating the constitutional rights of students.

Shapiro, the former state attorney general, is riding a huge election victory in the presidential battleground and has billions in state surplus cash to help him meet campaign promises.

He also has promised to work with Republicans and sow bipartisan peace.

But Shapiro is saddled with a slow-growing economy, grim demographic trends and what he calls a “workforce crisis” that is making hiring for social services, schools, police departments and hospitals harder.

Most details of Shapiro’s budget plan for the 2023-24 fiscal year, which starts July 1, remain under wraps.

Whatever Shapiro proposes will require passage from the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives and the Republican-controlled Senate Appropriations Committee hearings start March 20.

He has thus far focused on improving the business climate for companies and kitchen-table math for Pennsylvanians.

For starters, Shapiro said he will propose a three-year incentive of up to $2,500 a year for newly certified teachers, police officers and nurses to help address complaints from school boards, police departments and hospitals about the growing difficulty in filling critical positions.

He said he will seek more money for child care subsidies and for grants for local civic improvement projects, university research on cutting-edge manufacturing and science, computer and math programs in schools.

Shapiro also told a meeting of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development in Pittsburgh that “you will see investments” in energy in his plan.