Zero accountability in status-quo Harrisburg
Every day presents another example of the status-quo culture that continues to consume Harrisburg — a culture that embraces a mindset involving no commonsense and no care in the world about how your hard earned tax dollars are spent.
This week I learned from a York County municipality that because of state bureaucratic red tape, a $2,000 road construction project is going to cost the township $10,000 in engineering and permit fees.
Also this week Auditor General Eugene DePasquale issued a report of his office’s audit of the Department of Labor & Industry’s (L&I) Unemployment Compensation Service and Infrastructure Improvement Fund (SIIF). The Auditor General found an utter lack of accounting of how $178.4 million was spent by the department over a four year period from 2013 to 2016 — money that was supposed to be used to upgrade and improve the unemployment compensation benefits delivery system.
Secretary of Labor and Industry (L&I), Kathy Manderino, issued a written statement in response to the audit, in which she claims all of the funds were spent appropriately. Manderino has completely ignored the Auditor General’s findings.
DePasquale acknowledged that some upgrades were made, but he drove the point home of just how outdated the system is when he stated, “To say it is held together with bubble gum would be an insult to bubble gum.”
Quite frankly, if L&I would be a publicly traded stock company, the government would be investigating them, fining them, and shipping people off to prison.
But because Harrisburg is a government entity there are no legal repercussions.
It is time for zero-based budgeting in Harrisburg. We need to stop thinking that money grows on trees.
Just because a department was appropriated a certain amount of money one year, does not mean they should not be held accountable and potentially receive less the following year.
Gov. Wolf zeroed out plenty of line items in his budget proposal, and the House recently followed suit with passage of their budget bill, House Bill 218, which is before the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Yet, while valid line items are being zeroed out, we witnessed $178.4 million that was spent with zero accountability. Add this to the $170 million that was wasted on the original contract with IBM to upgrade the unemployment compensation benefits delivery system.
Enough is enough. I am sick of the current status-quo culture in Harrisburg. I will not turn the other way when I witness wasteful spending and zero accountability.
Some may think I am all about cutting funding, but the truth is, I am focused on bringing accountability to the money that we are already spending and ensuring that we are living within our means. I will not support a budget that increases funding and especially one that increases taxes.
I voted against the 2016-2017 fiscal year’s budget, and I will do the same for the 2017-2018 budget if it increases spending and taxes.
In early April I completed the end of my third year serving in the Pennsylvania State Senate. I have witnessed firsthand the lack of any type of accountability when it comes to spending of taxpayer dollars.