Posted on 05/27/2010 6:42:10 AM PDT by Born Conservative
Gov. Rendell says he did not know his transportation department had a 35-person unit that dealt exclusively with legislators' requests until he read about it in Monday's grand jury report.
And now that he knows about the unit, Rendell is disbanding it.
"A unit like that should never have existed," he said Tuesday. "It's inappropriate."
A state investigating grand jury singled out the unit for special criticism in a scathing report on legislative corruption and waste.
The "constituent services" unit within the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation is part of a network of state employees whose only jobs are to get drivers' licenses, renew motor vehicle registrations, obtain license plates, and do other routine paperwork for businesses and residents who do not want to do it themselves, the grand jury report said.
Legislators hire staffers in their district offices to perform those tasks, and both the Democratic and Republican caucuses in the state House employ dozens of staffers for that purpose, at a cost of millions of dollars a year to Pennsylvania taxpayers, the grand jury said.
The report said the House Republican caucus employs 20 people and the House Democratic caucus 14 people to do those errands.
And 35 state workers in PennDot are "dedicated to handling nothing other than the paperwork received from the elected members of the General Assembly," the grand jury report said. "Not surprisingly, nothing about the work performed by this unit within PennDot suggests that there is any need for state legislators to serve as intermediaries between their constituents and PennDot."
Rendell, whose administration is facing a billion-dollar budget gap, said the PennDot workers in the unit would be assigned to other jobs in the department.
(Excerpt) Read more at philly.com ...
Ping
Which means absolutely nothing is saved or downsized at all.
Lateral shifts in employee positions.
Another glimpse into the gilded life of the privilaged class. I despise politicians.
Disgusting.
Ya ya. Wait until you are caught then fein outrage. Nothing to see here.
Rendell in office for 8 years - and NOW discovers this?
"Constituents come to our offices because they have a problem," Miskin said...."What are we supposed to do, turn them away?"...
Some witnesses before the grand jury tried to justify the use of state employees to do the routine errands by portraying the beneficiaries as elderly constituents in rural areas who couldn't manage for themselves.
In reality, the report said, car dealers, paving companies, bakeries, and other businesses took advantage of the free service....
The only rationale offered by many witnesses... was political: It would "engender good will between the elected member and his constituents, thereby increasing the chance that said constituents would vote for that elected member... This is precisely the type of politically motivated activity that the public should not be forced to fund."
Even his claim on the perjorative nickname "Fast Eddie" is slipping.
ping
LOL! Then why bother?
In addition the inevitability of death and taxes almost every citizen can add “SNAFUs with the DMV”
Having experienced a number of these, I can state with certainty that the invervention of legislative aids has been invaluable. They do this as a public SERVICE, a word which seems to have been forgotten in the DMV/PennDOT.
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