PA Headlines 8/13/21
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — AP is reporting…The union that represents about 10,000 guards in Pennsylvania’s state prisons told Gov. Tom Wolf Thursday it plans legal action to stop his effort to force them to get COVID-19 vaccines over the next month. The president of the Pennsylvania State Corrections Officers Association sent a letter to the Democratic governor two days after Wolf ordered the guards and some other state workers to get fully vaccinated by Sept. 7 or face weekly testing. Union president John Eckenrode told Wolf his policy announcement was “a slap in the face — and frankly, way too late because thousands of our members already have been infected, due to your inaction.” “This is the latest episode of what has been a woefully inconsistent vaccination/testing/masking policy by this administration in our state prisons,” Eckenrode wrote, adding the union “has instructed legal counsel to challenge this latest proposed policy change.”
Wolf press secretary Lyndsay Kensinger said Thursday the initiative was designed to protect the guards, their families and the people they work among. “The union exists to protect and support the employees it represents, so the corrections union’s opposition to this initiative to stop the spread of COVID-19 is extremely disappointing,” Kensinger said. The Corrections Department’s website indicates about 4,800 of the prison system’s more than 12,000 staff have been infected by the coronavirus, and the union says nearly 3,700 of its members have caught COVID-19. The department says about 3,600 correctional employees are currently fully vaccinated. Eckenrode told Wolf that the plan for testing won’t make people safer because it does not extend to inmates’ family members, contractors, vendors and volunteers. “As for masking, our members are required to wear them, but inmates are not,” Eckenrode said, arguing that the masking policy does not make places where people congregate inside prisons safer.
HARRISBURG – Penn Capital-Star is reporting… All Senate expenses will be available online starting Sept. 1, the chamber’s top official announced Wednesday. “Pennsylvanians deserve to know how their tax dollars are spent, so opening the Senate’s books to the public eye is absolutely the right thing to do,” Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman, R-Centre, said in a statement. “The online transparency tool that is in development now will help fulfill the promise of state government that is more open and accountable to the people it serves.” The new reporting system will include all office leases, per diems — flat rates lawmakers can claim when traveling more than 50 miles from their house for legislative purposes — reimbursements for meals and lodging, supplies, mileage, and office maintenance. The database will apply to all Senate offices, Republicans, Democrats, Independent, and institutional.
Corman said the reporting system serves as a step to build on existing measures to create government transparency, including the PennWATCH system, which includes information on employee pay, state spending, and revenues, and campaign finance reports from the Pennsylvania Department of State. Before the change, journalists and the public had to file open records requests to view elected officials’ expenses. After being sworn into his position as top leader of the Senate, Corman stressed the importance of increased transparency in state government, though he has declined to comment on other efforts to address money’s influence in politics, including legislation that would prohibit lawmakers from accepting gifts from lobbyists.
A handful of lawmakers already have publicized their expenses online, including Sen. Lindsay Williams, D-Allegheny, who has been posting her own taxpayer-funded expenses since March 2020 after the Senate’s chief clerk redacted portions under legislative privilege without her consent. Now, Williams’ office expenses are compiled by staff and put in a searchable spreadsheet. They include everything from Harrisburg lodging for staff to coffee runs. She was happy to see Corman’s new policy but was holding out on judgment until she saw the format that expenses were shared. Williams also pushed for a vote on her legislation to make the policy change permanent, to mandate that the information be released in a searchable format, and that the state House also share its expenses with the public as well.
HARRISBURG – Penn Capital-Star is reporting… Gov. Tom Wolf is in tight-lipped negotiations with legislators, particularly his fellow Democrats, over how to spend $370 million in federal stimulus money allocated to his office for “pandemic response” — with few strings attached. The money is just a small fraction of the $7.3 billion in federal aid Pennsylvania received from the American Rescue Plan. And it was little noted by either the Legislature or the governor in their public comments when the state’s $40 billion spending plan passed in June. But in a time of fiercely divided government, it gives Harrisburg Democrats a rare chance to set their own spending priorities. It’s still unclear how the administration plans to spend the money. Asked Tuesday, Wolf said “we still are working on how to get that out.”
But Wolf went on to suggest that he was interested in using the money to incentivize skeptics to get vaccinated. Pennsylvania’s vaccination rate is currently hovering around 60 percent, and the number of people who are fully vaccinated in recent weeks has slowed. Speaking at a press conference on a separate vaccine initiative, Wolf cited President Joe Biden’s suggestion that states give vaccinated individuals $100 as an example. Wolf said early math indicated that could cost as much as $80 million. Sen. Vincent Hughes, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, told the Capital-Star that he agreed with Wolf’s thinking to encourage vaccinations. “That I think that makes absolute sense,” Hughes, of Philadelphia, said. “We’ve got to shut this virus down.”
The unrestricted nature of the funds has concerned some, such as Nathan Benefield, executive director of the Commonwealth Foundation, a Harrisburg-based, free-market think tank. “While we’ve unfortunately become used to convoluted earmarks being used to send public funds to individual interests across the state—a problem that our analysis shows surging this year—it’s rare to see a new appropriation of this amount without any language at all,” Benefield said. “Lawmakers and the governor should clarify what this money is to be used for.” A more detailed plan could be forthcoming. House Speaker Bryan Cutler, R-Lancaster, told the Capital-Star this week he was meeting with Wolf on Thursday, and expected the $370 million would be part of their conversation. Cutler did not say if he had any specific hopes for the money other than returning Pennsylvania to pre-pandemic normalcy..
