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Death investigation in Huntington Township

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Statistics show major crimes being reduced in Hazleton

<p>From all of us to all of you in the state capitol, Merry Christmas, Harrisburg!</p><p>Yes, once again the taxpayers of Pennsylvania are rewarding the state&#8217;s lawmakers, judges and top executive branch officials with a year-end salary increase.</p><p>It&#8217;s not a secret. This isn&#8217;t like 2005 when the General Assembly pulled a fast one and gave themselves double-digit raises in the middle of the night, with the cooperation of then-Gov. Ed Rendell.</p><p>We ran an Associated Press story about the latest increase last week, and other media outlets around the state wrote about it as well.</p><p>The problem &#8212; well, one of the problems &#8212; is that the average reader is too busy being outraged by manufactured controversies to pay much mind. Hence, the Harrisburg gravy train rumbles on year after year.</p><p>As a rough barometer, our story about this year&#8217;s 1.6 percent legislative salary increase had 17 comments on our website as of Sunday afternoon.</p><p>Two recent stories about Planned Parenthood losing its lease in Wilkes-Barre had more than 200 comments between them. Our story about the social media spat between Wilkes-Barre Councilwoman Beth Gilbert and former police chief Marcella Lendacky had 185 comments.</p><p>Granted, local government is important and abortion will always be a talker.</p><p>State government is rarely sexy, but it is important. In our case, it&#8217;s also too big and too expensive.</p><p>California, with a population of nearly 40 million, has 120 state legislators. Texas, with 28 million people, has a 181-seat legislature. New York State, with just under 20 million people, has a 213-seat legislature.</p><p>Our dear commonwealth, with 12.8 million residents, has 253 state legislators.</p><p>We are not saying there are easy answers to paring down Pennsylvania&#8217;s bloated system, but it would be a good start if more voters paid attention.</p><p>The annual adjustment takes effect Dec. 1 for lawmakers and Jan. 1, 2019, for judicial and executive branch officials. It is twice the size of last year&#8217;s increase and is &#8220;roughly in line&#8221; with private-sector wage changes, the AP reported.</p><p>Think about what you make and the last time you got a raise. Now consider that most lawmakers will see a base pay increase of $1,430 to about $88,600, and they also receive per diems. The House speaker and Senate president pro tem will top out at $138,300.</p><p>Gov. Tom Wolf&#8217;s pay will rise about $3,100 to $198,000, although he donates it to charity. The salary for the lieutenant governor-elect, John Fetterman, will surpass $166,300.</p><p>Highest-paid is state Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas Saylor. His salary will rise by about $3,400 to around $217,000.</p><p>Government and nonprofit agencies, when questioned on executive pay, have often responded that attracting the best candidates to leadership roles requires salaries that are competitive with what such individuals could earn in the private sector.</p><p>Speaking from the private sector perspective, in which most managers must contend with shrinking budgets and many employees can only dream of yearly raises, we are not sympathetic.</p><p>At the very least, Pennsylvania taxpayers who make too little have too many governmental mouths to feed.</p><p>Unfortunately, proposals that would have begun the process of scaling back the number of legislators died an ignoble death earlier this year <a href="https://www.pennlive.com/news/2018/09/game_of_chicken_over_shrinking.html" target="_blank">amid a welter of confusing procedural moves</a> that the average resident likely read little about &#8212; and may not have understood even if they had tuned in.</p><p>We encourage all who care to educate themselves on legislature reduction measures and push lawmakers to seriously study the matter.</p><p><em> &#8212; Times Leader</em></p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">The Capitol building in Harrisburg</div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/web1_PA-capitol-1.jpg</photo0><caption0>The Capitol building in Harrisburg</caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>

Our View: Pa. legislature too big, salaries too high