The most expensive state legislature in the nation

Don't miss the final installment of Robert Swift's excellent three-part series on the Pennsylvania Legislature, published today in The Times-Tribune.

Today's main story is a cautionary tale of the evolution of the Legislature into the most expensive in the country.

A report by the Commission for Legislative Modernization in 1969 paved the way for transforming the General Assembly from a body of part-timers to one in which members consider themselves on the job full-time, Swift writes.

More from Swift's story about the skyrocketing cost of state government:

While Pennsylvania voters never gave formal approval to this change, they elected candidates who ran during the 1970s promising to be a "full-time" lawmaker.

The transformed Legislature, with its greater scope of activity, equal footing with the executive branch and higher costs has seen relatively few changes. During the past 40 years, reforms have come slowly and grudgingly.

In the 1960s, the legislative staff totaled more than 500 people, but it wasn't equipped to do extensive policy research. The bureaucracy swelled to 1,700 people by 1984 and to nearly 3,000 staffers by 2003 even though voters set the number of lawmakers at 253 in 1968.

In 1964, it cost Pennsylvania taxpayers $6 million out of a $1 billion state budget to operate the part-time Legislature. In 1985, it cost taxpayers $80 million out of a $15 billion state budget for the Legislature. In 2008, legislative spending reached $316 million out of a $28.3 billion state budget.

Legislative pay increased from $7,200 in 1969 to $78,314 this year.

Per capita costs zoomed upward as well.

In 1981, the legislative operations cost $3.40 for every Pennsylvania resident. In 2007, the cost of the General Assembly was eight times that at $25 for every resident, according to an analysis by the National Conference of State Legislatures. Pennsylvania ranks third among the states in per capita legislative costs.

Read the full story, along with all the stories in the series, at The Times-Tribune Web site.

Originally posted at TONY PHYRILLAS