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Pennsylvania House of Representatives
04/19/2024 01:25 AM
Pennsylvania House of Representatives
https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/Legis/CSM/showMemoPublic.cfm?chamber=H&SPick=20190&cosponId=32500
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House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda

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House of Representatives
Session of 2019 - 2020 Regular Session

MEMORANDUM

Posted: September 29, 2020 01:38 PM
From: Representative Bud Cook
To: All House members
Subject: Truth in Hiring - Ending a Practice Used by Republican and Democrat Governors to Hide the True Cost of Their Office
 
On May 4th, 2018, the Illinois General Assembly sent Governor Rauner legislation which would reform government and provide transparency to taxpayers. The legislature, overwhelmingly Democrats, passed the Truth in Hiring Act to end a practice used by Republican and Democrat governors to hide the true cost of their office.

Unfortunately, this problem is not unique to Illinois as Republican and Democrat governors have used the same practice in Pennsylvania. Governors of both parties can hide the cost of their office by charging other state agencies for work done by their office to assist the agency. The charge which shows up as a budgetary “augmentation” for the governor’s office and is used to pay for the salaries of the employees who work for the governor’s office. According to the Illinois Comptroller, an elected Democrat, this practice is called “offshoring”.

Due to the “offshoring” of executive branch employees, our budget does not accurately depict agency costs. In order to provide taxpayers and the general assembly with an accurate number of agency employees and operating costs, I plan to introduce the Truth in Hiring Act. Under this legislation, no agency, including the governor’s office, may charge another agency to cover the cost of their employees. The legislation will also require the budget secretary to provide the general assembly with a report on the total number of employees and the cost associated with them for each agency. At the same time, the budget secretary will include in the report the total augmentations received by an agency of the executive branch received by other agencies to cover the cost of their employees.

Please join me in co-sponsoring this legislation.

Thank you.


Introduced as HB2913