Time To Vote Out The Pennsylvania Legislature

For the past year I highlighted the extreme bloatedness of our Pennsylvania legislature. The shenanigans aka Bonusgate carried on by its members and staff is little surprise once you read the details about its makeup. Bonusgate proved that the size of the staff is to man elections, not address voter concerns.

Thanks to Brad Bumsted over at the Pittsburgh Tribune Review a breakdown of its components exposes the real reason Pennsylvania taxpayers are footing the bill unnecessarily.

Pennsylvania is the sixth-largest state, has 4 percent of the nation's population, but features the largest legislative staff in the nation with 2,919 employees working for the House and Senate.

Why? The state Legislature is one of the most partisan legislatures in the country and because lawmakers -- at your expense -- have created a perpetual re-election machine with their Harrisburg and district office staff.

Pennsylvania has a larger legislative staff than California, Texas, New York, Florida or Illinois, according to an updated survey from the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL).
There's no sharing, of course, in the Keystone State. All four caucuses -- House and Senate Democrats and House and Senate Republicans -- have their own empires, from information technology to video services and public relations, to legal and committee staff.

There is no single place you can look up the combined taxpayers' cost of these legislative staffers. Suffice it to say it is probably now over $100 million. It was $94 million in 2004, based on Trib calculations of actual payroll records.

Ever wonder who's crunching all those numbers in this state's pitiful budget impasse now in its third month? The combined salaries of all four caucuses' appropriations staffs are $3.8 million. There are 13 employees making more than $90,000 a year.

Greg Jordan, the Senate Republicans' appropriations director, is paid $111,500. The Democrats' executive director, Randy Albright, gets $161,727.

In the House, Miriam Fox, the House Democrats' budget director, is paid $152,035.

Ed Nolan, executive director for the House Republican Appropriations Committee staff, tops out at $183,602, according to House records.

The House Democrat and Republican appropriations committees each spend about $1.1 million on staff. Salaries for Senate Republican budget staff total $731,000. The Senate Democrats' appropriations staff is paid roughly $830,000, according to payroll records.

It's little wonder Pennsylvania ranked at or near the top nationwide in every category measuring the cost of running legislatures, according to NCSL. It costs taxpayers about $310 million for the nation's largest full-time legislature.

In Pennsylvania, it costs $95.7 million to run the Senate, $180 million to operate the House, $7.8 million for the Legislative Reference Bureau and $26.7 million for various legislative councils and commissions.

Even if you factor out the legislative commissions, you're spending about $283 million to run the 253-member General Assembly.

These details plus the Bonusgate arrests should draw the ire of the voters to vote every incumbent out of office. A message needs to be sent about taxation, another Tea Party if you will. At a cost of over a million per Member people should be outraged. Harrisburg has become its own mob operation. Its time to end it. Where is Elliot Ness when you need him? But that really isn't true. What is needed are voters to exercise their right at election time. It will cost a whole lot less and get much better results.

FULL LISTING 2008 HOUSE AND SENATE SALARIES

As a follow up to my post on salaries of employees of the Pennsylvania Legislature that earn more than their bosses I compiled some figures from these tables.

The total for House employees listed is $4,989,300.35. The total for the Senate employees is $4,119,465.00. Source: Chief Clerk's Office, Pennsylvania House of Representatives and Pennsylvania State Senate.

Almost $10 million a year and we still have Bonusgate. Almost $10 million per year and Todd Eachus needed to hire outside counsel.

As far as Bonusgate and its costs go here's what the Morning Call had to say on the subject.

Recapping then, strike one was the secret and corrupt system by which state employees used taxpayer resources to help their bosses be re-elected. Strike two was the diversion of state funds to pay them extra for work they shouldn't have been doing in the first place. And the worst part of strike three is now that Bonusgate has come to light, taxpayers are being stuck with both the costs of prosecution (by the attorney general's office and two grand juries) and defense -- the $5.8 million for lawyers and other costs just disclosed. (By the way, it took a Right to Know complaint by the Associated Press to make that public. If it were up to the legislative leaders, it still would be a secret.)

To me it would appear $5 million seems to be a ball park throw around figure when you want to waste taxpayer's money.