Pennsylvania Could Find Budget Savings in Its Legislature (AP Article)

[JPZenger]

http://pottstownmercury.com/articles/2011/04/24/news/doc4db39509662ab399594296.txt?viewmode=fullstory

Excerpts:

"The grand jury recounted testimony by the former director of staffing and administration for the House Democrats that the Legislature’s staff is three or four times larger than it needs to operate. It also cited a an internal salary study by the House Republicans that only 60 percent of caucus staff in Harrisburg was needed to conduct legitimate legislative work.

Together with nonpartisan staff and service agencies, the Pennsylvania legislative branch currently employs, roughly speaking, about 2,960 people. The House and Senate currently pay about $119 million a year in salaries alone, with more than 200 people making least $80,000. Gov. Tom Corbett’s spending proposal, announced March 8, would trim just $4.3 million, or 1.4 percent, from the General Assembly’s appropriation, and leave intact its $189 million rollover surplus... Four years ago, the reform commission called for a 10 percent, $30 million cut to the General Assembly’s budget.

Reports by the Legislative Audit Advisory Commission show legislative spending has grown by $35 million since the 2005 pay raise bill, a vote the Legislature later repealed amid public outcry. The spending trend reversed last year, however, with the audit commission reporting in December that the Legislature’s internal spending fell by $9 million in ‘09-’10 to $318 million.

Barry Kauffman, state director of Common Cause of Pennsylvania, ... said “Most of the four caucus personnel office functions could be consolidated into one office,” Kauffman said. “There also is no need for the multiple TV and radio studios. Those production facilities could be combined into one or even outsourced. So could the multiple printing plants.”