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Commonwealth of Pennsylvania House of Representatives COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE HEARING STATE CAPITOL MAJORITY CAUCUS ROOM ROOM 140 HARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2009 3:55 P.M. VOLUME V OF VI PRESENTATION BY PENNSYLVANIA ATTORNEY GENERAL BEFORE: HONORABLE DWIGHT EVANS, MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HONORABLE MATTHEW D. BRADFORD HONORABLE TIM BRIGGS HONORABLE H. SCOTT CONKLIN HONORABLE EUGENE DePASQUALE HONORABLE JOHN T. GALLOWAY HONORABLE WILLIAM F. KELLER HONORABLE WILLIAM C. KORTZ II HONORABLE DEBERAH KULA HONORABLE BRYAN R. LENTZ HONORABLE TIM MAHONEY HONORABLE KATHY MANDERINO HONORABLE JOHN MYERS HONORABLE CHERELLE L. PARKER HONORABLE JOSH SHAPIRO HONORABLE JOHN J. SIPTROTH HONORABLE MATTHEW SMITH HONORABLE GREG VITALI HONORABLE JAKE WHEATLEY ————————— JEAN DAVIS REPORTING 7786 Hanoverdale Drive • Harrisburg, PA 17112 Phone (717)503-6568 • Fax (717)566-7760 2 1 BEFORE (cont.'d): HONORABLE GORDON DENLINGER 2 HONORABLE BRIAN L. ELLIS HONORABLE JOHN R. EVANS 3 HONORABLE MAUREE GINGRICH HONORABLE THOMAS H. KILLION 4 HONORABLE DAVID R. MILLARD HONORABLE RON MILLER 5 HONORABLE SCOTT A. PETRI HONORABLE DAVE REED 6 HONORABLE DOUGLAS G. REICHLEY HONORABLE MARIO M. SCAVELLO 7 HONORABLE RICHARD R. STEVENSON HONORABLE KATIE TRUE 8 9 ALSO PRESENT: DEBBIE REEVES 10 MAJORITY BUDGET ANALYST EDWARD J. NOLAN 11 MINORITY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR 12 13 DEBRA B. MILLER REPORTER 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 3 1 I N D E X 2 TESTIFIER 3 NAME PAGE 4 TOM CORBETT 5 PA ATTORNEY GENERAL.............................4 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 4 1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 * * * 3 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN EVANS: I would like to 4 reconvene the House Appropriations Committee 5 meeting. 6 We want to apologize to you, Attorney 7 General, about the time element. 8 ATTORNEY GENERAL CORBETT: We're on central 9 time, aren't we? 10 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN EVANS: Absolutely. 11 If you would introduce the people with you. 12 ATTORNEY GENERAL CORBETT: Absolutely. 13 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN EVANS: Then we'll go 14 right to the questions. 15 ATTORNEY GENERAL CORBETT: Okay. 16 To my right is Bill Ryan, the First Deputy 17 Attorney General; to my left is Sheri Phillips, 18 Director of Management Services; and to my far right 19 you all know, because she spends as much time here as 20 in our offices, Annmarie Kaiser, my legislative 21 liaison. 22 With that, ask away. 23 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN EVANS: Thank you. 24 ATTORNEY GENERAL CORBETT: No comment, no 25 comment, no comment. 5 1 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN EVANS: Listen to you. 2 What I want to start out with, I've been 3 asking this question about the Federal stimulus money 4 that is coming in, and I know public safety has been 5 one of the areas. We've just been talking to the 6 State Police. 7 Does the Attorney General in any way have 8 any access to some of those dollars coming to you? 9 ATTORNEY GENERAL CORBETT: We have not had 10 an opportunity to fully analysis -- what is it, 1,700 11 pages or something like that? We have not had an 12 opportunity to fully analysis that. At this point in 13 time, I am not aware of any avenue for us to get in 14 there, but we will continue to look at it. 15 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN EVANS: Right. 16 ATTORNEY GENERAL CORBETT: But I will tell 17 you, this lady to my left looks for every possible 18 dollar outside the Legislature we can get, and if 19 it's there, we'll get it. 20 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN EVANS: All right. So at 21 this point, you're not really sure. 22 ATTORNEY GENERAL CORBETT: No. 23 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN EVANS: The second issue I 24 want to talk to you on, talk to me a little bit about 25 how the Gun Task Force is moving and what is 6 1 happening with the Gun Task Force. 2 ATTORNEY GENERAL CORBETT: As you know, the 3 Gun Task Force was started back in 2007, with the 4 appropriation that started in July of 2007, and we'll 5 get those numbers and give them to you. 6 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN EVANS: Right. 7 ATTORNEY GENERAL CORBETT: We started out 8 and we created a task force of individuals, all 9 former Philadelphia homicide detectives, and we have 10 a staff of about 25 agents. 11 We are funding some district attorneys that 12 prosecute the cases in Philadelphia, and I believe it 13 is working very, very well at this point in time. 14 The funding of the task force allows us to 15 increase the training of, for instance, the number of 16 firearms examiners in the city of Philadelphia. 17 We found that one of the problems in 18 Philadelphia, at one point there were 6,000 guns 19 that had to be examined before you could ever even 20 get to a preliminary hearing, and we had six 21 examiners. Now we are up to, I believe, almost 22 20 examiners, and they have cut their backlog by 23 54 percent, which is a tremendous increase for what 24 is going on and getting the case, once there is a 25 gun seized, getting the case through the preliminary 7 1 hearing and into trial. 2 Now--- 3 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN EVANS: While you're 4 thinking about that, does that mean you are also 5 working with the Gun Court? Is that--- 6 ATTORNEY GENERAL CORBETT: Well, my 7 attorneys are not involved in that. 8 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN EVANS: Okay. 9 ATTORNEY GENERAL CORBETT: This is a 10 partnership between Philadelphia PD, the Philadelphia 11 District Attorney's Office, and the Gun Violence Task 12 Force. 13 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN EVANS: Right. 14 ATTORNEY GENERAL CORBETT: As you will 15 recall, the agents on this task force are my agents. 16 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN EVANS: Right. 17 ATTORNEY GENERAL CORBETT: They are under 18 the understanding that as long as you fund them--- 19 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN EVANS: Right. 20 ATTORNEY GENERAL CORBETT: ---they have a 21 job. 22 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN EVANS: Right. 23 ATTORNEY GENERAL CORBETT: If you don't fund 24 them, they are out of a job. 25 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN EVANS: Right. 8 1 ATTORNEY GENERAL CORBETT: In fact, with the 2 union contracts, we had to negotiate an exception 3 into that. 4 They have been working in the various 5 districts with the Philadelphia Police Department as 6 a team. And in many instances, they have been 7 helping to train, mentor, a lot of the younger 8 detectives that were out in the regions, because a 9 lot of these detectives, agents, retired right at 10 20 years. They got good pension buyouts and so 11 forth, and they lost a lot of experience. This 12 brings back that experience. 13 The task force to date has 270 arrests since 14 its inception. There were 149 arrests in 2008. 15 Now, 305 firearms have been recovered, 16 193 in 2008. 17 And right now, since inception, we have 18 913 active investigations. They get very active. 19 They have been active in a lot of the more notorious 20 cases. 21 For instance, I know our agents are very 22 active on the issue of the possession of a firearm by 23 the shooter in the killing of Officer Pawlowski last 24 Friday. That one is personal. Officer Pawlowski's 25 father is one of our insurance fraud agents. So our 9 1 guys are all over that one, working with the 2 Philadelphia PD. 3 If you would have asked -- when you did ask 4 me this question 6 months ago, a year ago, we were 5 seeing a dramatic, at that time, reduction in gun 6 violence, and I would attribute it to a new mayor, a 7 new police commissioner, a new attitude, but also to 8 the work that our agents are doing with the Gun Task 9 Force. 10 As it is, there were still a number of 11 homicides and a number of shootings in the city of 12 Philadelphia last year. We are down, I think it is 13 15 to 20 percent. 14 It doesn't sound like a lot, but when 15 you consider that the year before there were 16 400 homicides, 15 to 20 percent is a good start. Not 17 where we want to be; we don't want to have any, but 18 it is that teamwork of going after those individuals 19 who are buying guns and giving them to other people 20 that is very, very important. 21 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN EVANS: Representative 22 Reichley. 23 REPRESENTATIVE REICHLEY: Thank you, 24 Mr. Chairman. 25 Thank you, Attorney General. 10 1 As important as the prosecution of violent 2 crime, Internet abuse of children, elder abuse, 3 Medicaid fraud, I think just as equally on people's 4 minds these days is the issue of public integrity and 5 some areas like that. 6 With regard to similar kinds of 7 investigations that took place in Philadelphia on the 8 pay-to-play situation, a number of us have been 9 concerned about situations arising regarding on 10 pay-to-play and the awarding of various contracts. 11 Can you comment about whether that has been 12 an area that you have looked into at this point thus 13 far or whether it is something which you feel may 14 fall within your purview as Attorney General? 15 ATTORNEY GENERAL CORBETT: That's a pretty 16 broad question.
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