JUNE 30, 2011

Spending Transparency Coming to Pennsylvania at Last

Pennsylvania taxpayers are one step closer to finding out exactly how state government spends their money. Yesterday, the legislature passed HB 15 to establish PennWATCH—a free public spending database including all state revenues and expenditures, much like an online checkbook.  Thanks to the leadership of Rep. Jim Christiana and Senate Majority Whip Pat Browne for the leadership on this issue over the last few years.

Pennsylvania now becomes the 37th state to pass spending transparency legislation. The spending portal will be housed in Office of Administration, and implementation—ensuring a user-friendly website that every Pennsylvanian can access—will be the next step to help taxpayers hold Harrisburg accountable.

By December 2012, the website will feature:

• Information on state expenditures, including
  • Amount,
  • Name and address of the agency or vendor receiving funds,
  • The appropriation and the fiscal year the expenditure falls under,
  • The funding source, including the name of authorizing agency;
    
• Monthly revenues from taxes and the federal government;
• Performance measures to be evaluated; and
• The names, titles and salaries of all state employees.
  • Monthly pay, compensation benefits and bonuses of all employees will be added by January, 2013

By December 2014 the website will also include:

• A description of each appropriation, and 
• Expected and achieved performance results.

posted by ELIZABETH STELLE | 03:15 PM | 0 comment

FEBRUARY 10, 2011

Podcast: Talking Transparency

In the latest The BOX podcast, Senior Fellow Jeff Coleman sits down with Representative Jim Christiana after the unanimous passage of his transparency legislation in the State House. Under PennWATCH (HB 15) citizens would have access to state government spending through a free, searchable, online database of state government spending. Pennsylvania has lagged behind the transparency movement, with 31 states already creating spending transparency websites.

Rep. Christiana explains the benefits of online transparency including savings and government accountability.

Establishing a searchable spending database is one of our 80 ideas for a prosperous Pennsylvania. Here's more info on transparency:

• Spending Transparency on the Fast Track in PA 
• Making PA Budgets Honest
• Spending Transparency and Accountability Facts
• State Spending Transparency Testimony 

posted by ELIZABETH STELLE | 05:35 PM | 0 comment

JANUARY 25, 2011

Spending Transparency on the Fast Track in PA

Yesterday, Rep. Christiana's PennWATCH proposal passed the House State Government Committee along with a number of reform measures designed to bring more transparency to state spending. The legislation (HB 15) is scheduled for a House floor vote as early as Wednesday. The legislation would require state spending to be posted online via a free user friendly database.

Democrats will offer an amendment to expand the scope of the database (subscription required).  

Among other changes, it would require the inclusion of state tax credit programs, the salaries paid to agency employees, investments of public funds, and the past performance of similar expenditures.

According to Americans for Tax Reform, 31 states have already established spending databases. Texas has already identified $8.7 million in savings thanks to their spending database. Apart from the potential savings, taxpayers deserve to know how their money is being spent. And creating a database is a fairly inexpensive endeavor, one that many states have accomplished by existing resources.

PennWATCH was introduced last year, but a similar proposal by Rep. Mirabito passed the House instead. Meanwhile, the Senate passed Sen. Browne's bill, SB 105, but the two chambers were unable to work together to send a bill to the Governor. Like PennWATCH, SB 105 has been reintroduced this year with significant support. Let's hope this time around the Senate and the House can cooperate to bring more accountability to state spending.

posted by ELIZABETH STELLE | 04:50 PM | 0 comment

JANUARY 13, 2011

Good Government Reforms Stall

In November, many legislative candidates campaigned on cutting costs in the legislature through specific, commonsense reforms. Ending the frequent abuse of per diems and requiring receipts for expenses topped the list, along with ending the leasing of state vehicles, and requiring health care insurance contributions from state representatives (state senators currently contribute 1 percent of their salary). While these reforms are not big-ticket items capable of balancing the budget on their own, they would help trim the costs of the most expensive legislature in the country.

Leaders held a Bipartisan Management Committee meeting, but nothing was decided in the first meeting. The difficulty of convincing elected officials to even submit receipts for travel expenses speaks to the need for broader reforms, like transitioning to a part-time legislature or establishing spending limits. These reforms are unlikely unless citizens have the ability to propose and repeal laws through Initiative & Referendum.

Let's hope the new legislature achieves and builds on these reforms as a prelude to transparency and accountability in government.

posted by ELIZABETH STELLE | 03:29 PM | 0 comment

JANUARY 7, 2011

Are Freshmen Lawmakers Bad for State Legislatures?

Governing magazine looks at the disadvantages to term limits, focusing on the constant turnover in state legislatures. Recognizing the inexperience of lawmakers, states like Michigan and California are setting up boot camps and mentoring programs to ensure it doesn't take years to understand the legislative process.

The inconveniences of term limits is a small price to pay for the absence of entrenched lawmakers that make careers out of political service and forge deep alliances with special interest groups—preventing principled and fiscally responsible decision making.

A Commonwealth Foundation analysis shows a strong connection between legislative professionalization and higher spending per capita, a higher tax burden and less economic freedom. Specifically, each increase in the level of professionalization results in an estimated $441 increase in spending per person, and a 0.4 percent increase in taxes as a percentage of income.

Term limits are just one of many government reforms. Initiative & Referendum, returning to a part-time legislature and more spending transparency also have the potential to move the culture in Harrisburg away from legacy building.

posted by ELIZABETH STELLE | 02:15 PM | 0 comment

OCTOBER 19, 2010

Not-so-Effective Tax Credit Programs

The Legislative Budget and Finance Committee issued a new report on the utilization and accountability of Pennsylvania's tax credit programs. The report looks at everything from the Research and Development Tax Credits to the Organ and Bone Marrow Donor Tax Credit to the even more obscure Limited (Malt Beverage) Tax Credit.

Many of the programs were given very poor ratings, and the Committee advised lawmakers to cease some of them all together. Here are some of the highlights of the overall picture of PA's Tax Credit Programs:

• The tax credit amounts utilized are often far less than the amounts authorized in the legislation;
• Little is being done to monitor or verify program results;
• Although tax credit programs have a significant impact on Commonwealth tax revenues and can result in millions of dollars of tax benefits to individual companies, they do not require an annual appropriation, and therefore may go relatively unscrutinized for years at a time;
• Most tax credit programs do not have clearly defined goals and objectives.

Tax credits misallocate capital to areas deemed politically important. Beyond the political distribution of tax burdens, the fact that the Pennsylvania government cannot monitor the programs effectively or measure their effectiveness should give lamwakers pause.

Additionally, narrow tax credits shift the tax burden to companies and industries not politically favored, resulting in a high tax burden and uncompetitive economic climate for the bulk of Pennsylvania businesses.

posted by NICHOLAS FETT | 05:00 PM | 0 comment

SEPTEMBER 24, 2010

State to CF: Transparency Denied

A couple months ago, we requested the salary information of state employees for our new openPAgov database (if you missed the launch, we currently have Pennsylvania school district payroll, spending, performance, and property tax information online). The state sent us the information, as it is covered under the Right to Know law, but in a PDF format, even though the data were clearly printed from a spreadsheet.

When we requested the information in its original format, government officials replied they had fulfilled their legal obligation under the current law. We appealed the ruling and our appeal was rejected, you can read the rejection letter below, based on a court ruling that it "leave[s] to the discretion of the agency the manner it chooses to release [the information]". Thankfully our poor intern wasn't saddled with the redious task of entering all the salary information into a spreadsheet, as we've got some tech savvy people making the conversion-- for a fee, of course.

But things may be changing. State Senator Dominic Pileggi (R) is working to pass legislation to address this and other procedural issues in the two year old Open Records law. Among the provisions is a new requirement that agencies provide information in the medium and the format it was requested, unless the information does not exist in that format. In other words, if there is a spreadsheet, state agencies have to share that spreadsheet. Other changes include:

• Restricting info requests to the financial information of private government contractors,
• Allowing any document presented at a public meeting to be requested,
• Narrowing the exemption of non-criminal investigation records,
• Changes in response deadlines for snail mail requests and appeals,
• And the ability to request info from the head of the Agency as well as the Open Records Officer.

Of course, all of this could have been avoided with the passage of HB 1880, which would put all state spending online in database form for anyone to see, including state payroll information.

Payroll Right to Know Rejection

posted by ELIZABETH STELLE | 03:30 PM | 7 comments

SEPTEMBER 2, 2010

A Slap in the Face to Pennsylvania Taxpayers

The Tribune Review revisits the Rendell Administration's leasing tens of thousands of acres of state forest lands via no-bid contracts.

State records the Tribune-Review obtained show that, in one noncompetitive agreement Jan. 7 with Texas gas company Anadarko, the state received $1,000 an acre for 2,300 acres in Sproul State Forest, in Centre and Clinton counties.

Two weeks later on Jan. 19, a public auction of 31,976 acres in Cameron, Clearfield, Potter, Clinton and Tioga counties generated $128 million, or about $4,000 an acre, for taxpayers.

A similar situation occurred in May, when another no-bid contract with Anadarko resulted in a lease of 33,000 acres at an average $3,650 an acre. Greg Wrightstone, a petroleum geologists notes private landholders were getting $5,000 to $6,000 acres at the same time.

Both of these private, no-bid lease schemes ... were consummated at less than market-bonus rates, Wrightstone said, calling the deals "a slap in the face to Pennsylvania taxpayers."

As we've blogged in the past, Gov. Rendell's no-bid deals -- in light of a budget crisis, pension crisis, and transportation crisis -- smack of corruption. And yet he wonders why lawmakers don't support his push for higher taxes.

posted by ELIZABETH STELLE | 04:05 PM | 0 comment

AUGUST 13, 2010

Corrupt Courts Refuse Transparency

The Scranton Times reports that the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records (OOR) is appealing a court ruling extending an exemption to open records to the judiciary branch. (HT FYI by PLS)

The Commonwealth Court this week ruled records of ancillary offices to the state's court system are not subject to the 2008 Right to Know Law. The Times-Tribune sought Lackawanna County records for its Department of Domestic Relations. The media sought "inappropriate e-mails" sent and received by Pat Luongo, Director of Domestic Relations, for which he had been suspended without pay.

OOR Director Terry Mutchler responded:

“It is a brand-new law and everybody is in a stage of weighing in. This court weighed in with a very strong opinion related to this and we’re welcome for any guidance,” she said. “The Office of Open Records still feels that our final determination was correct.”

While some court records are exempted by laws governing privacy and security, it is up to the agency receiving the request to prove the information in question falls under the 30 Right to Know exemptions.

The Commonwealth Court is effectively usurping the spirit of the Right to Know law. This is cause for concern, given the recent criminal activity within the court system in Luzerne County and allegations of corruption within the PA Supreme Court. It is more important than ever to establish transparency in the state judicial system.

posted by ELIZABETH STELLE | 09:37 AM | 0 comment