Let’s dock pay for politicians
About 25,000 state workers received notices last week that they will be furloughed if the state government does not have a new budget in place by July 1, the beginning of the next fiscal year. That is a required warning and a bit of political leverage by the administration against the Legislature, since public employees are an important political constituency.
Even though the Legislature has had the governor’s proposed budget proposal since February, there is a very real chance that lawmakers will not manage to pass a final version by July 1.
The governor’s proposal includes numerous major initiatives, including a badly needed new formula for school funding that will increase the state’s share by nearly 20 percent, expansion of health insurance for low-income workers, and a major energy conservation and alternative fuel program.
Even so, there is nothing new about the initiatives, which the governor has proposed, for the most part, for several consecutive years.
Instead of simply notifying state workers that they might have to hunker down in July, lawmakers should establish a protocol to enhance their own accountability.
Both houses should adopt a rule docking lawmakers’ pay, plus penalties, for every day that the state government does not have a budget.
Pennsylvania has the largest full-time state Legislature in the United States, partly because of the dubious theory that the workload and expertise necessary to handle complex legislation mandates full-time attention.
The failure of a full-time Legislature to enact a budget with so much lead time is inexcusable. The Legislature should enact rules to force its own hand.