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Senate Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
Senate of Pennsylvania
Session of 2019 - 2020
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | December 7, 2018 03:05 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Senator Patrick J. Stefano |
| To: | All Senate members |
| Subject: | Public Notice Prior to Signing Collective Bargaining Agreements |
| In the near future, I plan to re-introduce legislation to provide public notice of collective bargaining agreements prior to approval. Taxpayers have the right to know how their hard earned money is being spent. Public employers across the Commonwealth currently negotiate contracts costing billions of dollars without any public review or oversight. My legislation will require any proposed collective bargaining agreement be made available on the public employers’ publicly accessible Internet website within 48 hours. An agreement must be posted online two weeks prior and thirty days following the signing of the collective bargaining agreement. The posting shall include the following information: A statement of the terms of the proposed collective bargaining agreement; An estimate of the costs to the public employer associated with the agreement. Proposed collective bargaining agreements and any documents presented by the public employer or received from the employee organization in the course of collective bargaining are to be public records subject to the Right-to-Know Law. Taxpayers have a vested interest in the labor negotiations between public employers and their employees and deserve the right to review contract agreements. Requiring an online posting of the proposed collective bargaining agreements is a straightforward reform to advance government transparency and ensure taxpayer money is spent effectively. This legislation was formerly Senate Bill 168 from the 2017-18 Legislative Session. This bill was co-sponsored by Senators Scarnati, Aument, Bartolotta, DiSanto, Eichelberger, Folmer, Hutchinson, Reschenthaler, Vogel, and Wagner. During that Session term, the bill passed both the Senate State Government and Senate Appropriations Committee with votes of 8-4 and 17-8 respectively. I sincerely hope that you will consider joining me in co-sponsoring this legislation. If you have any questions regarding this information, please contact Jake Gery in my office at jgery@pasen.gov. |
Introduced as SB339