Checking the Balance

Hazleton update

So a Hazleton reader emailed me a short time ago and said that Hazelton Mayor Lou Barletta is trying his own kind of problem solving when it comes to the pension problems Hazleton is facing (Click here for yesterday's full story). According to this reader, Barletta met with representatives from the police department last Friday morning. During the course of the meeting he explained his position to them. It went something like this, "If you don't support me, I can find another job. But if I lay all of you off, all of you are f**ked."

In addition to officially removing him from the Miss Congeniality competition, this seems like an odd way to get support from cops. Especially if you're in the right. According to my source, the cops are not happy about this type of treatment.

Barletta is turning out to be as entertaining as I imagined. So, we'll continue to follow.

I wouldn't really call it a deadline...

The Patriot News reports Gov. Rendell expects a budget agreement in two weeks.

Despite today being the last day of the state's fiscal year, Gov. Ed Rendell said at a news conference today that he doesn't expect a budget agreement for possibly two more weeks.

He met with legislative leaders on Monday and plans to meet again this afternoon with them going over each line of the budget. He called the session productive and the spirit of the discussion "cooperative," but acknowledged miles separate the budget proposals.

"I don't expect to get it done this week or even possibly next week, but I expect we can get this done," he said.

Many state employees are hoping it gets done by July 17 so they can avoid having the budget impasse and the state's limited authority to spend money without an enacted budget, begin to impact their paychecks.

Tomorrow is the start of the new fiscal year and for the seventh consecutive year, Pennsylvania will start it without a budget in place. At this point, the governor and Senate Republicans' budget proposals are $1.5 billion apart.

What the heck is the point of having a deadline, if there's nothing enforcing it?  This is completely unacceptable, yet it happens every year. 

Here's an idea; instead of setting the budget dead "flexibleline" for the last day of the fiscal year (June 30), move the date to May 31st.   This means, when faux-deadline is met without a budget agreement, the legislators will actually have another month to hammer out the details. 

Think of it as setting your clock to 7 a.m. when it's actually only 6:50. 

Of course, an idea like this will never be implemented because it uses common sense...

What's the hang up? (Cut and dry edition)

The Patriot News takes a look at the snags the Dems and GOP are facing over the budget.

The four main issues:

• How much to spend?
• To raise or not raise taxes?
• Raid the piggy-bank?
• Investing in education

It definitely isn't looking like the two sides will find an agreement before tonight's deadline. 

Philly.com's John Baer provides another humorous top 10 list.  This time he focuses on why the budget needs to be passed on time.

My personal favorite:

4. So that the news hole is open and state Attorney General Tom Corbett can stop stalling and go ahead and charge the Republican lawmakers and staff he's rumored to have teed up in connection with his corruption probe of the Legislature.

Wouldn't that be nice...

Pennsylvania is getting healthier

According to John Micek, HB1 passed with a 106-96 vote. 

The State house signed off on an expansion of the state's adultBasic insurance program for low-income Pennsylvanians yesterday. But the long-expected final passage didn't come without some early fireworks.

The chamber's 104-96 vote came after three hours of debate, with all Democrats, and just one Republican, former House Speaker Dennis O'Brien of Philadelphia, voting for it, our pals at Capitolwire report this morning.

This is good news for low-income Pennsylvanians who don't currently have health insurance.  The adultBasic insurance program will now cover close to 130,000 Pennsylvanians.

In other House voting news, HB1648 was passed with a unanimous vote.  The bill creates an inter-branch commission which will focus on judicial corruption.

The Pennsylvania House of Representatives on Monday unanimously passed a measure introduced by state Rep. Todd A. Eachus, D-Luzerne, which would create an Inter-branch Commission on Juvenile Justice.

Eachus said his legislation (H.B. 1648) is the product of a joint effort by leaders from all three branches of Pennsylvania government. Eachus worked alongside state Sen. Lisa Baker, R-Luzerne; Pennsylvania Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille; and Gov. Edward G. Rendell to develop this bipartisan, over-arching approach to examine the judicial corruption case in Luzerne County and seek to restore public confidence in Pennsylvania's juvenile courts.

The commission would investigate the fundamental problems that led to the corruption in Luzerne County and how the county juvenile justice system failed.

Now, only if they can get a budget passed...

Not in my backyard

Majority Leader Todd Eachus seems to have some problems in his backyard. There have been a slew of articles lately in Luzene County papers telling the story of Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta moving money from his pension fund to pay other city bills. The kicker is that Barletta did this without knowing whether or not it was legal, and kept doing it after Auditor-General and Governor-hopeful Jack Wagner (who's best title is uncle of the delightful Rep. Chelsa Wagner - who is a proud new mom) ruled it "improper."

For those of you who have misplaced your Pennsylvania Politicians baseball cards, Lou Barletta gained national fame by yelling at the top of his lungs for the expulsion - and a few other nasty sounding verbs - of illegal immigrants. He's also run against Rep. Paul Kanjorski twice and lost. And here's a tidbit - according to blogger/investigator Mike Stark, he may share social habits with Senator John Ensign and Gov. Mark Sanford.

So Barletta is crying that Eachus has to help the city. Eachus is saying it's Barletta's fault. Barletta is actually saying it is, but he had the very, very best of intentions - and what does blame matter anyway.  After all, it's not like the firefighters, cops and other city employees are counting on their pensions. I'm sure they're fine with Barletta's Madoff-like accounting procedures. All in all, probably not the headache Eachus needs during budget season.

CTB will keep an eye on this story, if for no other reason than Barletta tends to be pretty entertaining. Also, if he's thinking that the third time's the charm against Kanjo, being held responsible for millions of dollars of improperly used pension funds probably isn't the bumper sticker he's looking for.

Is there a doctor in the house?

In a story that isn't getting much press, HB1 will be put to a vote this afternoon.

What HB1 is:

An Act establishing the Expanded Adult Basic Coverage Insurance Program and the Physician Retention Loan Forgiveness Program in the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency; providing for powers and duties of the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency and for health care coverage for telehealth; establishing the Hospital Electronic Information Incentive Payment Program and the Dentists for Medical Assistance Patients Program in the Department of Public Welfare; making appropriations; and making related repeals.(Representatives EACHUS, DeLUCA, DeWEESE and others)

The bottom line; this bill would increase AdultBasic enrollment from 45,000 to 130,000.

I'll report the results of today's vote tomorrow morning.

R.I.P. Michael Jackson

"The King of Pop" has died.

Michael Jackson was due to make his triumphant return to the stage in London next month — but instead his sudden death has left millions of fans feeling they've lost a lifelong friend.

The dramatic death of the brilliant singer seemed to obscure his recent controversies and kindle warmer memories of Jackson the child star and Jackson the show-stopping, moonwalking headliner.

The worldwide chorus of grief united the famous — statesmen and superstars alike — and the legions of ordinary people who grew up with "Thriller" and "Beat It."

Word of Jackson's death jolted nearly everyone, from a young man in Colombia who was named after the King of Pop, to Malaysians who named a soy drink for him, to a generation of people around the world who have tried, in vain, to moonwalk.

"It's horrible news, so unexpected," the Italian actress Sophia Loren told The Associated Press by telephone. "The world has lost an icon and music has lost treasures. He wrote songs that generations of yesterday, today and tomorrow will all keep on singing. What he wrote was amazing."

Loren and her children had been frequent visitors to Jackson at his Neverland ranch in California, developing an enduring friendship.

"I hope that Michael will find that peace that maybe he did not have in the last 15 years."

Whether you liked his work or not, there's no denying the influence he's had on modern day pop-culture. 

My favorite Jackson song (which, coincidentally, might turn out to be the theme for many Pennsylvanian politicians):

It must be Friday...

The Associated Press reports Attorney General Tom Corbett is charging a woman with changing her daughter's grades.

Pennsylvania prosecutors say a high school secretary illegally changed grades in a school computer system to improve her daughter's class standing.

Attorney General Tom Corbett said Thursday that Caroline Maria McNeal used co-workers' passwords without their knowledge to access the system at Huntingdon Area High School in central Pennsylvania.

The 39-year-old McNeal is accused of improving her daughter's grades and test scores, while reducing scores for two of her classmates.

McNeal was charged with 29 counts each of unlawful use of a computer and tampering with public records. No telephone number was listed for her.

School officials said they corrected the alterations before the students graduated in 2008.

Now, I can see the temptation in inflating your own child's grades, but why on earth would you go out of your way to lower the grades of two of her classmates?  

It makes you wonder, if this woman would have only bothered raising her daughter's grades, and not adjusted any other students' grades, would she have been caught?

Thank God we have Corbett to take care of these messes...

Well, it certainly looks like bribery...

Philly.com says Pennsylvanians are getting conned by their public servants.

IS BRIBERY legal in Pennsylvania politics? Thanks to the arcane rules that govern campaign donations, it's nearly impossible to know.

But a new Pennsylvania Common Cause study tracking donations from the gaming industry to state lawmakers over the last seven years suggests that anyone wanting to connect the dots can end up with a fairly ugly picture. During that time, nearly $17 million in contributions flowed to lawmakers from people with a stake in the gaming industry, including lawyers and lobbyists who represented gaming clients.

The report identifies the top donors - Ira Lubert, associated with the planned Valley Forge casino, tops the list at $455,000, with Peter DePaul & family, with interests in Foxwoods casino, a close second - as well as the top recipients. No surprise that Gov. Rendell has cleaned up at this particular table with contributions exceeding $1 million. Former state Sen. Vince Fumo, architect of the gaming bill, comes in second, at $400,000; Rep. John Perzel comes in third, at $236,000.

Even as lawmakers were cashing the checks, they were considering allowing casinos to come to Pennsylvania. The odds are good that all of this campaign cash played a role in the eventual success of the legislation.

The report comes out as state lawmakers are considering two major expansions of gambling: the legalization of table games such as blackjack in casinos and of video poker in bars. (Pushed by Rep. Bill DeWeese, who is on the list of top-20 recipients of gaming money.)

Based on the report, it's a safe bet that campaign contributions are again flowing in Harrisburg.

Common Cause has called on lawmakers to voluntarily disclose contributions from gaming interests. (Right now, they don't have to disclose any information on contributors until they're spending money trying to influence elections.)

They're pushing for reform that would mandate reporting and would set limits on donations. But we think it's equally critical to make sure donations can be tracked in real time.

During nonelection years, campaign committees have 12 months to file a report with the Department of State. In fact, political-action committees are required to file reports only if they have tried to influence an election in the past year.

That means lawmakers holding hearings or voting on the expansion of gambling - or on any law - could be receiving huge donations from the interested parties . . . and we'd have no way of knowing for a year.

This must change. The state should require campaign committees to provide monthly reports and make them accessible to the public online. We need to know who is giving money to our elected officials and how much, and see the link between fundraising and legislating.

The billions of dollars of recovery-act money coming into the state - much of which will be spent on construction contracts for infrastructure improvements - makes this especially critical.

The current system is based on the idea that campaign contributions are primarily to influence elections. In reality, money flows just as often to influence laws. If democracy is going to be as corrupted as this, let's at least be able to see the evidence sooner.

With the lack of urgency our politicians are showing in dealing with our economic disparity, the bonus schemes and shady campaign contributions; how are Pennsylvanians supposed have any trust in our government?

It's getting pretty tough...

Bill DeWeese has 20/20 hindsight

House Majority Whip Bill DeWeese keeps churning out the hits.  The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review has the story.

House Majority Whip Bill DeWeese said Thursday that the legislative bonus scandal, in which he was implicated, would not have occurred if the state had an online database of state spending.

At a news conference to tout a database bill sponsored by freshman Republican Rep. Jim Christiana of Beaver County, DeWeese said such a database would have eliminated problems from the past.

Asked whether he was referring to the bonus scandal, DeWeese said, "That is correct." But asked to elaborate, he said: "I think that speaks for itself."

The concept behind the database is to post every state expenditure online, "so the public can see where their tax dollars are going," Christiana said.

But Stephen Miskin, spokesman for House Republicans, isn't convinced such a database would have uncovered the bonus scandal Attorney General Tom Corbett's office is investigating.

"If somebody chooses to withhold something, there's nothing you can do about it if you don't know about it," Miskin said. "Any system like this is only as good as the input."

Exactly.  If this database was in place and a politician wanted to hide activity, they simply wouldn't accurately input their data. 

When will Bill DeWeese stop trying to push blame on others and admit his responsibility?

Just once, I'd like to hear DeWeese say, "As Majority Leader, I was responsible for the things happening underneath my nose.  I should've been a better leader and kept a closer eye on my colleagues."

I'm not going to hold my breath...