Bucks County lawmaker plans to return $5,000 bonus
HARRISBURG – Bucks County Rep. Chris King said he would return to taxpayers the $5,000 bonus he received as a House research analyst last year, minus the sum taken out for income taxes. King, who received the bonus while campaigning last July, said the bonus issue was becoming “a distraction” and he didn’t “want there to be any sense of impropriety.”
“Because the whole process for awarding bonuses has come into question that is a problem and a distraction and I am going to be writing a check to the Treasury and I am going to be returning the money,” King said in a phone interview.
King said the amount returned would be $3,108, the sum of the check he received after federal and state income taxes were withheld.
Lower Southampton Republican Chairman John Waltman said “that’s a step in the right direction” but doesn’t right the wrong done to Republican candidate former Rep. Matt Wright. King won by pounding Wright over the 2005 legislative pay raise and better transparency in government. The bonuses were kept secret until recently.
“He bashed Matt and he played along like he was Snow White and here he’s doing exactly the same thing,” said Waltman. “It’s outrageous. It’s really outrageous.”
The freshman legislator provided a lengthy account of why he received the bonus and how it matched up with his unpaid leave of absence from the House during last year’s campaign season.
He said the bonus check was the result of a favorable job performance evaluation in November 2005 for work done that year under then-supervisor former Rep. Frank LaGrotta, Democratic chairman of the House Tourism Committee.
King said LaGrotta tried to get him a pay raise above his annual $42,000, but Democratic leaders “didn’t want to go that way” and issued a bonus instead nearly seven months later on July 19.
“I imagine that discussion took some time,” King said.
King said he did not take unpaid leave until nearly a month later on Aug. 16, when leadership approved his time off. By that time he had used up a total of 50 vacation days he had accumulated during his five years on staff so that he could campaign, he said.
During the entire time he remained on taxpayer-funded health insurance, he said. He remained on unpaid leave until the end of November, right before his $73,000 state legislator salary kicked in on Dec. 1.
“When I received my job performance evaluation at the end of 2005 I wasn’t a candidate for public office,” said King. “When I received the bonus I was a candidate and that obviously is why this has become a distraction.”
The dates of King’s unpaid leave could not be independently verified because records were not immediately available from the House chief clerk’s office. LaGrotta could not be reached for comment.
King received a $565 bonus in 2005, far less than that of last year. He said he had changed positions from a policy committee analyst, where he worked with a staff of seven, to a three-person staff under LaGrotta where he handled both tourism committee business and constituent services. The bonus wasn’t for working longer hours, he said.
“My job responsibilities had increased a tremendous amount,” King said. “We accrue comp time if there are longer hours. I was doing more work in terms of dealing directly with constituents and working on particular bills.”
One bill he researched dealt with a violence rating system for video games, he said.
King said he would not return the $565 bonus in 2005 because he was not a candidate then.
Wright said what bothers him most is not the bonus but the secrecy behind it during the campaign.
“If it’s deserved, that’s fine. I do not know if it is or not,” said Wright. “But he had this message to be more open and transparent, a reform message. At the same time he himself was choosing a path to hide the facts.”
King said he was not aware the public could not get access to staff bonuses at the time, since his salary was public. But King said he supports more openness and a thorough review of the bonus system by the House Legislative Reform Commission.
“When we’re talking about tax dollars, people need to know where the tax dollars are being spent,” King said. “We need public accountability.”
Alison Hawkes can be reached at 717-705-6330 or begin ahawkes@calkins-media.com ahawkes@calkins-media.com end
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