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COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE HEARING STATE CAPITOL MAIN BUILDING ROOM 140 HARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2013 11:30 A.M. PRESENTATION FROM OFFICE OF AUDITOR GENERAL BEFORE: HONORABLE WILLIAM F. ADOLPH, JR., MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HONORABLE RYAN AUMENT HONORABLE KAREN BOBACK HONORABLE GARY DAY HONORABLE GORDON DENLINGER HONORABLE GARTH EVERETT HONORABLE MAUREE GINGRICH HONORABLE SETH GROVE HONORABLE TOM KILLION HONORABLE DAVID R. MILLARD HONORABLE DUANE MILNE HONORABLE MARK T. MUSTIO HONORABLE DONNA OBERLANDER HONORABLE BERNIE T. O'NEILL HONORABLE MICHAEL PEIFER HONORABLE SCOTT A. PETRI HONORABLE JEFFREY P. PYLE HONORABLE CURTIS G. SONNEY ————————— JEAN DAVIS REPORTING 285 EAST MANSION ROAD • HERSHEY, PA 17033 Phone (717)503-6568 1 BEFORE (cont.'d): 2 HONORABLE JOSEPH F. MARKOSEK, MINORITY CHAIRMAN HONORABLE MATTHEW D. BRADFORD 3 HONORABLE MICHELLE F. BROWNLEE HONORABLE MIKE CARROLL 4 HONORABLE H. SCOTT CONKLIN HONORABLE MADELINE DEAN 5 HONORABLE DEBERAH KULA HONORABLE TIM MAHONEY 6 HONORABLE MICHAEL H. O'BRIEN HONORABLE CHERELLE L. PARKER 7 HONORABLE JOHN P. SABATINA HONORABLE STEVEN SANTARSIERO 8 9 ALSO IN ATTENDANCE: 10 DAVID DONLEY, REPUBLICAN EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR DAN CLARK, REPUBLICAN CHIEF COUNSEL 11 MIRIAM FOX, DEMOCRATIC EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR HONORABLE TODD STEPHENS 12 HONORABLE DICK STEVENSON HONORABLE MIKE VEREB 13 HONORABLE TIM BRIGGS HONORABLE VANESSA BROWN 14 HONORABLE TOM CALTAGIRONE HONORABLE DOM COSTA 15 HONORABLE PAMELA DeLISSIO HONORABLE BILL KELLER 16 HONORABLE PHILLIS MUNDY 17 18 JEAN M. DAVIS, REPORTER NOTARY PUBLIC 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 2 1 I N D E X 2 TESTIFIER 3 NAME PAGE 4 5 EUGENE DePASQUALE 7 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 3 1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 * * * 3 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Good morning, 4 everyone. 5 I would like to call to order the House 6 Appropriations Budget Hearing on the Pennsylvania Auditor 7 General. My name is Bill Adolph. I'm the Republican Chair 8 of the House Appropriations Committee. 9 Before we get started, I would just remind 10 everyone to turn off their iPhones or cell phones and all 11 their little gadgets that make noise during the testimony. 12 It's difficult for television viewers to hear. And also it 13 interrupts the testimony. 14 We're going to take just a few minutes to 15 introduce the members of the Appropriations Committee and 16 then we'll get right into our testifier. 17 I'm Bill Adolph from Delaware County, 165th 18 Legislative District. 19 MR. DONLEY: Dave Donley, Republican Staff 20 Executive Director. 21 MR. CLARK: Dan Clark, Chief Counsel, Republican 22 Appropriations Committee. 23 REP. PETRI: Scott Petri, State Representative, 24 178th in Bucks County. 25 REP. MUSTIO: Good morning. Mark Mustio, 44th 4 1 District in Allegheny County. 2 REP. DAY: Good morning. Gary Day, State 3 Representative from Lehigh and Berks Counties. 4 REP. PYLE: Good morning. Jeff Pyle, State 5 Representative, 60th Legislative District, Armstrong and 6 Indiana Counties. 7 REP. OBERLANDER: Donna Oberlander, Clarion and 8 Armstrong Counties. 9 REP. AUMENT: Good morning. Ryan Aument, 41st 10 District, Lancaster County. 11 REP. GINGRICH: Good morning, General. Rep. 12 Mauree Gingrich from Lebanon County. 13 REP. SONNEY: Good morning. Curt Sonney from 14 Erie County, 4th District. 15 REP. MILLARD: Good morning. David Millard, 16 109th District, Columbia County. 17 REP. DENLINGER: Good morning. Gordon Denlinger, 18 99th District, Lancaster County. 19 REP. O'NEILL: Good morning. I'm Bernie O'Neill, 20 29th District, Bucks County. Thanks. 21 REP. EVERETT: Good morning. Garth Everett, 84th 22 District, Lycoming County. 23 REP. GROVE: Seth Grove, York County, 196th 24 District. 25 REP. PEIFER: Good morning. Mike Peifer, 139th 5 1 District, which is Pike, Wayne, and Monroe Counties. 2 REP. BOBACK: Good morning. Rep. Karen Boback 3 representing parts of Luzerne, Columbia, and Wyoming 4 Counties, House District 117. 5 REP. SANTARSIERO: Good morning, General. Steve 6 Santarsiero, 31st District, Bucks County. 7 REP. BRADFORD: Good morning. Matt Bradford, 8 Montgomery County. 9 MINORITY CHAIRMAN MARKOSEK: Good morning. Rep. 10 Joe Markosek, 25th Legislative District, Allegheny and 11 Westmoreland Counties. 12 And I'd also like to indicate that Rep. Pam 13 DeLissio from Philadelphia County is here as a guest. 14 MS. FOX: Miriam Fox, Executive Director, House 15 Appropriations Committee, Democrats. 16 REP. BROWNLEE: Good morning. Michelle Brownlee, 17 Philadelphia County, 195th Legislative District. 18 REP. CARROLL: Good morning, General. I'm Mike 19 Carroll, Luzerne and Monroe Counties. 20 REP. O'BRIEN: Nice to see you back, General. 21 Mike O'Brien, 175th District, Philadelphia. 22 REP. CONKLIN: General, Scott Conklin, 77th, 23 Centre County. 24 REP. MAHONEY: Tim Mahoney, 51st District, 25 Fayette County. 6 1 REP. KULA: Good morning. Rep. Deb Kula from 2 Fayette and Westmoreland Counties. 3 REP. DEAN: Good morning, General. Madeline 4 Dean, Montgomery County. 5 REP. SABATINA: Good morning. Rep. John Sabatina 6 from Philadelphia County, 174th District. 7 MINORITY CHAIRMAN MARKOSEK: Also, a big mea 8 culpa to Chairman Phyllis Mundy, who is also here as well. 9 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Thank you. 10 I would also like to acknowledge the presence of 11 Rep. Mike Vereb of Montgomery County, part of the House 12 Republican Leadership Team. 13 Good morning and welcome. 14 AUDITOR GENERAL DePASQUALE: Thank you. 15 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Congratulations. 16 AUDITOR GENERAL DePASQUALE: Thank you, 17 Mr. Chairman. 18 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Obviously, this is the 19 first time for you to be on that side of the hearing room. 20 AUDITOR GENERAL DePASQUALE: And last night I was 21 remembering all the pesky amendments I filed the last 22 couple of years and thinking, oh, that might not have been 23 such a good idea. 24 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Well, obviously, we 25 want to wish you the best of luck. We are always proud of 7 1 former House members when they go on to bigger offices. 2 The working relationship that this General Assembly had 3 with your predecessor was a good one. Obviously, we used 4 his audits, his findings, to put together part of the 5 budget the last several years. 6 AUDITOR GENERAL DePASQUALE: Yes. 7 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: And I'm sure we are 8 going to have the same type of relationship with your 9 office. And I'm looking forward to working with you in the 10 next couple years. 11 AUDITOR GENERAL DePASQUALE: Thank you. 12 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: And this door will 13 always be open to you as we put forward this budget. 14 And I know you are here to talk about your 15 specific budget. We have quite a few questions to ask you 16 regarding your request. 17 Chairman Markosek, would you like to make any 18 opening remarks? 19 MINORITY CHAIRMAN MARKOSEK: Thank you, Chairman 20 Adolph. 21 Just a real big congratulations, Mr. Auditor 22 General. 23 AUDITOR GENERAL DePASQUALE: Thank you. 24 MINORITY CHAIRMAN MARKOSEK: It's just great to 25 see that you've come a long way. We're here to work with 8 1 you. I don't have any direct questions for you this 2 morning. Some of the members do so I'll yield my time 3 there. 4 I just want you to know, it's usually proper 5 protocol to address somebody by the title of their highest 6 achievement. And for me that's always going to be 7 Representative. I do respect where you are now. 8 AUDITOR GENERAL DePASQUALE: Totally fair. 9 MINORITY CHAIRMAN MARKOSEK: But nevertheless, I 10 know you have a great respect for the Legislature and the 11 House. 12 AUDITOR GENERAL DePASQUALE: Absolutely. 13 MINORITY CHAIRMAN MARKOSEK: We're really happy 14 to see you where you are. 15 AUDITOR GENERAL DePASQUALE: Thank you. 16 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Before you tell us 17 where we can find a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse, like 18 your predecessor, if you would like to have some opening 19 comments, go right ahead, General. 20 AUDITOR GENERAL DePASQUALE: Sure. Thank you. 21 And each of you have received my full budget 22 testimony. I'm just going to make a couple brief points. 23 And then I'm looking forward to the questions and a good 24 give-and-take here. 25 For starters, it certainly means a lot for me to 9 1 come back here today. Obviously, I have been over here 2 before since the election. But the friendships that we had 3 and the understanding that sometimes you have a good battle 4 legislatively and there may be different points of view, 5 but everybody comes here with the idea of trying to make 6 Pennsylvania a better place. 7 And I know the dedication and the commitment and 8 the sacrifice that so many of you make. And certainly, I 9 appreciate that. I not only want to continue the 10 friendships, but I'm looking forward to my role as Auditor 11 General, providing a different level of service to help the 12 Legislature so that we can put ideas forward to improve 13 State Government. 14 There are a couple issues that I really want to 15 bring to your attention. One is Pennsylvania's Department 16 of the Auditor General conducts more audits than any other 17 State Auditor in the country. 18 And I was a bit surprised to find that out. We 19 conduct about 4,000 per year. But that is down from about 20 5,000 per year where we were just a few years ago.