$4M More for Lawmakers' Costs in Pa. House Budget

By Melissa Daniels | PA Independent

HARRISBURG — Among the $578 million spending increase Pennsylvania’s House Republicans propose for next year’s state budget is a cool $4 million bump for lawmakers themselves.

The $28.3 billion proposal, released Tuesday, is about $100 million less overall than what Gov. Tom Corbett proposed in February.

But Corbett’s plan keeps funding flat for Senate and House of Representatives budgets, at nearly $272 million. The House proposal bumps that up to $276 million, an increase of 1.5 percent.

Funding for the General Assembly covers lawmaker salaries, caucus operations, mileage and printing expenses. Line items include “incidental expenses” and “contingent expenses.”

House Appropriations Chairman Bill Adolph, D-Delaware, said the increase was needed after reviewing actual expenses.  And House Speaker Sam Smith, R-Jefferson, added that a 1.5 percent increase for operations was also given to the state’s Office of Attorney General, the Office of the Auditor General, the Treasury, the governor’s office and the judiciary.

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House Majority Leader Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny, said the increase was fair, and pointed to savings House Republicans have made. Since gaining the House majority in 2011, they’ve eliminated $2 million in spending on lawmakers’ per diems. And now both elected officials and their staff contribute to health insurance costs, Turzai said.

“I think 1.5 percent across the board, particularly judiciary, the row offices, and the legislature, is a good policy,” Turzai said, “and it’s beneath the overall increase of 2.1 percent that we have put on the table in overall increase in spending.”

House of Representatives funding includes lines items for special leadership accounts on both sides of aisle. Under this proposal, both Republican and Democrat leadership accounts would see $86,000 increases for a total of $5.8 million apiece. Such accounts, and those for committee chairs, operate like checkbooks that do not get reviewed by the House controller like other types of spending. General Assembly spending is monitored by the Legislative Audit Advisory Commission.

But since the budget is a working document, the numbers are far from set in stone.

Last year, Corbett proposed slashing General Assembly funding by some $12 million to $260 million. But by the end of negotiations in June 2012, lawmakers got that back up to nearly $272 million.

Elsewhere in their 11-page budget plan, House Republicans propose increasing funding for basic education, hiring 300 more state troopers, boosting the Office of Open Records and restoring money for regional poison control centers and support services for people who suffer from ALS and epilepsy and others.

The proposal does not include plans for increase transportation funding, pension reform or allude to liquor privatization, all top priorities for Corbett that lawmakers have yet to finalize.

Adolph, while introducing the House proposal, said the top priority is to pass the budget on time. He noted the proposal is is predicated on the most recent revenue estimates the state has, figures that are subject to change.

“By no means am I presenting this budget to you today as if this is the final budget,” Adolph said.

Contact Melissa Daniels at melissa@paindependent.com