HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ORIGINA COMMONWEALTHOF PENNSYI,VAI{IA HOUSE APPROPRTATIONS COMMITTEE
IN RE: BUDGET HEARING
. MAIN CAPITOL MA.JORITY CAUCUS ROOM ROOM 140 HARRISBURG, PENNSYI,VANIA
WEDNESDAY,MARCH 3, 2OO4, 10:00 A.M.
BEFORE: ' HON. DAVID G. ARGAIJL, CHAIRMAN HON. DWIGHT EVANS HON. PATRICK E. FI-,EAGI,E HON. MATTHEW E. BAKER HON. STEPHEN E. BARRAR HON. STEVEN W. CAPPEI,I,I HON. CRAIG A. DALI,Y HON. GENE DiGIROLAMO HON. PATRICK E. FLEAGLE HON. TERESA FORCIER HON. JEFFREY E. HABAY HON. ,JIM LYNCH HON. ,JOHN A. MAHER HON. SAMUEIJ E. ROHRER HON. CURT SCHRODER HON. .]ERRY A. STERN HON. PETER J. ZUG HON. .JAKE WHEATLEY, JR.
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l_ APPEARANCES :, (CONT, d)
I z HON. DAN B. FRANKEI, HON. FRANK LaGROTTA .HON. 3 KATHY M. MANDBRINO HON. ANTHONY ,J. MELf O 4 HON. PHYI,LIS MUNDY HON. ,]OHN MYERS 5 HON. MICHAEL P. STURLA HON. THOMAS, A. TANGRETTI 6 HON. DON WALKO ' . HON. ,fAKE WHEATITEY, ,JR. 7 AI,SO PRESENT: B HON. PAUL I. CLYMER
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3 SPEAKER PAGE
rr. David Sanko 5.
5 Edward Mann 2T
,6 Donald Cunningham,,Jr. 63
7 Donald Yarkin 139
8 Co1 . ilef f rey Mil1er 153
9 Lt. CoI. Henry Oleyniczak 168
10 Lt. CoI. Ralph Periandi 166
LL Estelle Richman 228 t2 Michael Nardone 23r
L3 Steve Rosskopf 233 t_4 David Feinberg 279 l_5 Wayne Stevenson 3]-2
16 Kathy Yorkievitz 330 t7
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25 L . CHAIRMAN ARGAITIT: WeLcome to Day 9
2
3 we review the Governor's suggest,ed budget f or the
4 upcoming fiscal- year
Before we begin with the 5 .
o Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, Itd
7 like my colleagues on the committee to introduce .
B themselves,'beginning with Representative Evans.
9 REPRESENTATIVE EVANS: Good morning.
10 Dwight Evans.
11 REPRESENTATIVE LAGROTTA: Frank
t2 LaGrotta, Warren, Butler, and Beaver County. o L3 REPRESENTATIVE MELIO: Tony Me1io, I4 Bucks County.
15 REPRESENTATIVE BARRAR: STCVE
16 Barrar, Delaware and Chester Counuy.
t7 REPRESENTATM CAPPELI-.,f: Steve
L8 Cappe11i, I'ycoming CountY.
19 REPRESENTATIVE BAKER: Matt Baker, . 20 Tioga and Bradford Counties.
2I REPRESENTATIVE FLEAGIIE: PAt,
22 Fleagle rom Franklin County. .f 23 ' REPRESENTATIVE ZllG: Peter Zu!,
24 Irebanon Count,Y.
25 REPRESENTATfVE FORCfER: Teresa 1 Forcier, Crawford.
2 REPRESENTATIVE LYNCH: Jim LYnch,
3 Forest, McKean and Warren Counties.
= REPRESENTATIVE DIGIROI,AMO: GCNC
5 DiGirolamo from beautiful Bucks County.
6 CHAIRMAN ARGALL: You know a 1ittle
7 bi.t about Bucks County, I think, Mr. Sanko.
I Welcome to the committee and please begin your
9 statement.
10 DIRECTOR SANKO: Good mornitg,
11 everyone. I am Dave Sanko, the director of the t2 Emergency Management Agency. This is not the
13 press conf erence where ,John Ed.wards is going,to
L4 be dropping out of the race.
15 Wit,h me is Ed Mann, the State Fire
L6 Commissioner, who will be available for comments
L7 at the conclusion of the testimony.
18 Mr. Chairman and members of the t9 committee, I am pleased. to have the opportunity
20 to appear before you to discuss the state budget
2T proposed for PEMA, the Pennsylvania Emergency
22 Management AgencY.
23 behalf of our emergency
24 responders across the state and more than a
25 hundred thousand men and women who comprise our 1 fire, EMS, and police first response community,
2 our red, white, and blue line of defense if you
3 wil1, I want to thank You, the members of the
4 GeneraL Assembly, for your continued interest and
5 supportr.
6 These are extraordinary t'imes for ' 7 those involved in publ ic saf ety'. And it a time : B of great challenge, as well as a time of
9 tremendous opPortunitY.
10 In response to the tragedies three
11 years ago on September 11, the federaL government t2 has committed unprecedented resources to help
L3 ensure the safety of our communities.
L4 The combination of these resources
15 and'legislative framework authorized by you in l-5 Act 2OO2'227 which recognized Pennsylvaniars t.7 regional counterterrorism task force has allowed
L8 uS to create a public safety preparedness program
19 that directly impacts every resident of this
great Commonwealth and' is second to none' .20 2J. must te11 You, Mf,. Chairman, that
22 these federal funds, while substantial, are
23 significantly restricted' in how they can be
24 spent.
25 While program emPhasis and Public 7
1 discussion revolves around terrorism
2 preparedness, what we are building at PEMA and
3 across the Commonwealth with the help of our 67
4 county partners is a capacity to address all
5 hazards, natural as well as man-made.
6 At the end of the day, after a lot
7 of hard work and careful investment in a
B comprehensive regional program
9 necessary equipment, plannitg, training and
10 exercises Pennsylvaniars communities will be
11 more safe and more security.
l2 rn order to accomplish this, under
13 the umbrella of the regional counterterrorism
l4 task forces .werre creating partnerships''that.
15 include all aspects of our communities elected
L6 officials, first responders, business and
t7 industry, hospitals, medical community,
1B education, critical infrastructure, volunteer
19 community, the news media, and many others
20 working together to ensure the safety of all our
2L ne ighborhoods .
22 . Last year I told You that
23 P'ennsylvania had one of the finest emergency
24 management platf orms in Amer j-ca.
I 25 Wetve not resLed on that 1 accompLishment but continue to build upon this
2 so1id, foundation. Irm pleased to report that the
3 Federal Department of Homeland SecuriUy uses
4 Pennsylvania' s program as a nat ional mod.e1 .
5 Also, Mr. Chairman, earlier this
6 year we submitted. to the Federal Department of
7 Homeland Security the Pennsylvania Statewide
8 Homeland Security Assessment'and Strategy, which
9 represents an extremely comprehensive review of
10 our risk potential and resource inventory. That
L1 is a three-year strategy, a blueprint, if you
I2 wiI1, that we will use over the course of the
13 next three years to build capacity and to qualify
14 for federal federal resources.
15 It was a lot of effort that went l_6 into that over the course of this past year with l-7 all of our communities and responders. I can l_8 assure you that there is the regional
19 . partnerships have taken into account economies
20 and efficiencies to make sure that this is not an
27 e_verybody-gets-something program, but it ..1q 22 intended to use the resources we have mosL wj-se1y
23 and build capacit,y regionally.
24 This document was developed last
25 year to provid.e .the road map f or that f uture 1 spending p1an. We identify high risk potentials
z and balance them against our existing resources
3 to develop what a list of unmet needs would be.
4 We work closely with the Governorrs
5 Homeland Security Adviser, the Pennsylvan j-a State - o Po1ice,. the Department of Health, National Guard,
7 DEP, agriculture actua11y, I canrt think of a
B single staL,e agency that we do.n't interact with
9 or coordinate with as it relates to - either r.-0 preparing for or responding Lo or recovering from
1L a disaster. t2 ' CollectiveIY, we regularly meet with
13 regional counterterrorism task forces as we l4 proceed to implement this important strategy.
15 While werre making significant l_6 progress in helping prepare our communities for
L7 response to t,errorism event, it's important to
L8 remember that we also continually refine our
19 hazard preparedness Platform.
20 I-rast year PEMA coordinated federal
2t disasL,er aids for residents and businesses as
22 well as local governments and ot,her qualified
23 applicants for six catastrophic events to include
24 f j-re, f lood, tornado, and severe storms.
25 Early 2003 the severe winter storm 10
1 impacted 3 6 counties. PEMA, oD the Governorrs
2 request, did request for fed.eral aid. resulted in
3 some in excess of $20 million being paid out
4 in leverage from the federal government' to local
5 communities to assist in snow removal costs for
6 over a thousand municipal governments, 29
7 hospitals and healt,h care f aciliLies, 19 higher
I ed. institutions, ? state agencies, 113 school
9 districts, as we]1 as the City of Philadelphia- l_0 In the,July through September severe
tl_ storms there was addit ional $ l-2 mill ion in
L2 damag€, of which nearly 7 million has been
l_3 distributed. In those applications,we continue
L4 to work through the process with those remaining
l_5 municipalities to get have Lhem file the
J-O appropriate forms so they qualify.
t7 In September of that -- last Year,
18 on the tail of the hurricane, S to 10 inches of
L9 rain fe11 in Chester County resulting. in over 'was 2A $1.4 million worth of damage that eligible
2t for federal assistance and 1ow interest loans to
22 the businesses and residents of Chester County.
23 Additionally, there were three sma11
24 business administration disaster loans and three
25 localized disasLers. One was in Tionesta Borough l_1
1 Business District, a fire in March of last year;
2 Cameron County Bmporium Business District, a fire
3 in February; and then most recently f lood.ing in
4 the last November in Greene County.
5 A number of elements key to our
6 success are already in p1ace, but we need your
7 , continued support.
I Effective communications. is one of
9 our greatest challenges to our community
1_0 emergency response program.
11 .Maj or incidents involving multiple
L2 response organizations from many areas is
13 significant. Many use different radio systems on
I4 a range of varied frequencies which makes
15 communications and coordination almost
16 impossible. t7 PEMA is working with our 800
L8 megahertz radio project office staff to develop
19 interoperabl-e communication capabilities, which
20 will a1low incident command.ers at the scene of
2t disaster to.communicate effectively with all
22 first responders.
23 As w.e leverage federal resources to
24 assist in this component, we insist that all of z3 those anything that buys into the system has L2
I to be interoperable and has to be able to work
2 with all of the other parts of the exj-sting
3 system.
4 We're installing g00 megahertz
5 radios in each of the county 911 centers that
6 will complement our existing communication
7 systems to ensure that we have connectivity
I between us and each of our county emergency
9 management operations and dispat'ch cenLeri. 'speaking 1_0 of the gLL program, I want
LL to take a moment to commend the legislature for l2 passing Act 56 of 2003, which sets the stage for
13 the development of a comprehensive wireless 911 t4 capacity.
15 When completed, this enhancement r-6 will ensure that residents and visitors, when t7 they need help and dial 9l-1 f rom the cell phone,
18 they wi]1 have access to the same level of
19 enhanced service as wired line callers
20 i'rregardless of where they are in the
2L Commonwealth.
22 Relative to the importance
23 important advance
24 opportunity to buil-d out a uniform statewide
25 Geographic Information System, better known as L GIS.
2 Therets been a 1ot of .resources
5 spent over the years on GIS technology. And one
4 of the things'that is going on right now is the
5 standardization and trying to pu11 those
6 resources together, have a' single base map.,- and
7 t,hen let individual agencies or count'ies be
8 responsible for specific laYers.
9 This maPPing technology will have l_0 untold benefits to alL levels of government, from
11 being able to predict flood zones to projecting l2 estimated damages before a disaster actually r_3 occurs, based on property assessment records;
14 And by doing that, w€ think we'11 be able to
15 speed relief to victims of disasters.
L6 As we work wiUh the countY.911
I7 centers to d.evelop their ]ocator tracking l_8 technology for the wireless program, we'11 also
19 work wit,h the office administraLion and the
20 various county GIS offices to ensure that we
2t build a common technology everything is being
22 built on a common technology qlatform.
23 A number of counties have alreadY
24 demonstrated how vital this tool can be used for z> land. use managgmens, daLa and. records management, t4
l_ and a wide variety of other important county and
2 local government applications.
3 When introducing this cIS capability
+ into the 9l-L centers I believe it can help all
5 county governments take advantage of this
6 marvelous 21st century technology tool. PEMA has
7 been recognized as a leader in the application of
8 state-of-the-art technology for quite some time.
9 We were the first state emergency
L0 management agency in the nation to use
L1 computer-based technology to track and monitor t2 emergency incident and disaster response.
13 Wetre also the first state emergency
L4 management system in the nation to use
15 satellite-based technology to interconnect our
16 operation centers with our federal and counter t7 or, county counterparts. Both of these
18 accomplishments date back to the late '80s. r_9 Our latest accomplishment in this
20 ,area is the development of a statewide
2L internet,-based incident reporting system known as
22 PEIRS, the" Pennsylvania Emergency fncident
23 Reporting System.
24 After a careful review of all
25 available options, the governor. late last year L5
1 designated PEIRS as the official. statewide
2 homeland security incident reporting system
3 throughout the Commonwealth.
.t This network will link our 67 county
5 emergency management _agencies, key f ederal
6 agencies, other state agency departments, and
7 soon our county 9l- 1 centers .
B As an aside, this technology was
9 developed by PEMA staff. Pennsylvania is blessed
10 to have many quality public servants, many of
11 whom work in the public safety arena and at PEMA. t2 Working with our federal and county
13 and community counterparts, werre moving to the \ l_4 next 1evel in the areas of data management and t_5 information dissemination. l_5 Information sharing is a watchword
L7 that werre finding all across Lhe country in
L8 homeland security. At the federal level it is
19 challenged with coordinating federal response.
20 Given the challenges that we face,
2l itts imporUant that we continue to harness the
22 resources of modern technology as an important
23 tool.
24 An example of this type of
25 initiative is the dramatic transformation that 15',
1 our statewide emergency alert syst.em has mad.e,
I 2 which began two years ago.
3 With the support of radio and
4 television stations across the state, emergency
5 management officials can alert residents to
6 approaching severe weather conditions or
7 accidents that, present threats to.community
I safety.
9 Most common EAS alerts involve flood
10 or tornado warnings, rail and highway accid'ents
Ll_ involving dangerous materials, as well as
t2 accidents in the workplace can also impact
13 ne ighborhoods .
t4 The EAS program Provides elected
15 officials and emergency responders with the
16 capability to provide rapid,. widespread public
T7 warning.
1B erve found at the end of the day it
l_9 rea11y doesn't matter what causes the event- If
20 you have to have an evacuation, it doesnrt matter
2! whether itts a result of a tractor-trailer with
22 hazardous chemicals overturning. at the
23 intersection of an interstate or some goofball
24 with al bomb. The response t,o the community is
25 sti11 the same. And the responsibility to L7
t_ protect the community is still the same
2 This EAS syst,em al so provides the
3 backbone of Project Amber, which aLlows state
4 police to alert area residents when a chitd has
5 been abd.ucted. With the cooperation and support
6 of. the broadcast community werve converted this
7 statewide network from an oftentimes
I less-than-reliable off-air monitoring system to a
state-of-the-art computer controlled interactive
1o digital network.
11 By mid year we will have most t2 broadcast stations in Pennsylvania on 1ine,
13 resulting in a dramatic improvement of our l4 ability to provide re1iab1e, timely, and accurate " l-5 information when. needed to all Pennsylvanians. l_6 Werre also installing this t7 Lechnology in each of our counties as a 1oca11y
18- activated warn j-ng system.
19 PEMA, in conjunctj-on with a number
2A of, other state agencies and regional
2l counEerterrorism t,ask f orces, are working on
22, number of initiatives in the training and
23 gxercise arena in order to standardize and
24 coordinate'our efforts and. to make this process
25 more ef f icient,. 1B
l_ ' In May of last year a working grouP
2 was established to review all existing homeland
3 security training in the Commonwealth and
4 establish goals and objectives for standardizing
that training for each public safety discipline.
6 Subsequent meetings, subcommittees
7 for emergency management, law enforcement, fire
,8 services, public works and emergency medical
9 services and public health developed a set. of l_0 baseline performance competencies for each
11 discipline at the awareness, operational, t2 technician and. command 1eve1. r_3 Another new initiative IN the t4 training arena is the development of a learning
15 management system. In conjunction with the Sta.te
15 Fire Academy and the Education Resource Group of
l7 th.e State System of Higher Ed, we were developing
1B a one-stop shopping system where a publ ic safety
l_9 person can register for training, see a course
20 catalogue, get their training transcript all in
2L one place.
22 .This system will also be linked with
23 our current and future online training courses,
24 as well as maintaining individual credentialing
25 information that will be critical for the L9
1 incident commander at the scene of an event to be
2 able to swipe a card and know what the training
3 leveLs are of the individual responders so they
4 can be appropriately responded and deployed in
5 response.
6 We are develoPing ten tabletoP
7 exercises, one for each of the nine regional
I terrorism task forces and. one for the state
9 operations center, and a fu11 scale exercise for l_0 each of the nj-ne task f orce regions. l_L These exercises are being developed t2 and evaLuated in accordance with the Department
13 of iomeland Security guidelines. We are engaging
14 our partners at the county 1eve1, at t'he trask
L5 force 1eve1, at the state 1eve1, other state l-5 agencies, dt the f ederal l-eve1. We had a very' l7 very significant meeting yesterday in the
1B Philadelphia region where werre partnering with
19 the U. S . At,torney, the Coast Guard, and the FBI
20 to make sure werre not duplicating our resources,
2J. making best best utilization of the funds that
22 are available.
23 Fina11y, Mr. Chairman, w€ recognize
24 that we are very aware of l imi t ed f und.ing and the
25 need to do more with l-ess. Itrs our goal to maximize the application of the funding we o 2 receive, both from the state and federal 3 government.
4 Irm confident by working closelY
5 with our partners in all levels of government we
6 can..support our f irst responders and protect the
7 communitie.s against any unknown.
B On behalf of Governor Rendell and
9 the L2 million Pennsylvanians w.e s.erve, I want to
10 thank you and the members of the committee
1L welL as t-he enEire General Assembly for yoqr
t2 continued. support of PEMA and our partners in
L3 public safety across the state. Our combined'
L4 efforts: have made Pennsylvania a safer place to
15 1ive, work, and raise a family.
L6 I ' d be happy to answer any quesLaons
!7 you have.
1B CHAI RMAN ARGALL : Thank You , Mr .
19 Sanko. Itm not sure if my questions are best
20 addressed to yqu or to the Commissioner
2t Commissioner and I were almost strangled by s.ome
22 low hanging wires at Mcadoo last yearr so we have
23 a lot in common. :
24 You'11 f ind, I think, orl this
25 committee, and. certainly members of the House and 2L
Senate, many strong supporters of the aid thaL
2 werve been able to provid,e to the volunteer
3 firemen and the EMS volunteers over the last
4 cyc1e.
5 Werre very, very pleased that that
6 program has been included for, I guess now, a
7 third year in this proposed budget.
I Irm curious. I saw in the
9 Commissionerrs testimony a list of, I think, t0 2O over 2600 applications. How d'oes that work
11 out in percentage terms? t2 I know in my district we attack the
13 issue very aggressively and we were very pleased'
L4 when heard that a hundred percent of all of
15 our volunteer fire compani-es had fil1ed out the
15 form. That was our goal. And we worked with l7 them to be sure that we achieved that goa1.
18 . I tm curious as to what the statewide
19 number might be for the volunteer fire companies
20 as well as t,he EMS squads.
2t COMMISSIONER MANN: Sir, the I
22 guess maybe the
23 percentage becauge I honestly canrt t,e1] you how
24 many volunteer fire companies and rescue squads
25 actually exist in PennsYlvania 22
1 -I can.tell you compared. to the grant
2 program of three years ago we received l-92 fewer
3 fire applications and we received an additional
4 3B EMS applications over and above three years
5 490.
5 . Most 1ike1y there a..re two reasons
7 why we received fewer fire applications. In 2000
o -when we had the grant program there were a lot of
9 organizations that applied that werenrt
1-0 qualif ied, and I don't t,hink they even bothered l_1 this time. t2 And f also think because we had a
13 requirement this year in the program to have fire t4 departments agree to participate in the l_5 Pennsylvania Fire Information Reporting System, t6 that I believe there were some folks that decided
L7 that they didn I t want to apply because. of that
18 requirement in the program.
L9 CHAIRMAN ARGALL: I understand the
20 program was designed to be very customer
21 friendly. I mean, the form is very simple to
22 fill out. And I do appreciate that effort. I
23 guess I'm somewhat concerned that we donrt know
24 how many volunteer squad.s we have.
25 COMMISSIONER MANN: Itrs not a 1 question I cqn honestly answer. And that is one
2 of the things werre trying to get to by offering
3 an j-ncentive for people to participate in the
Pennsylvania Fire Information Reporting System is
5 that we might once and for all be able to get our
6 arms around just how many fire companies there
7 are.
t'
9 I represent were thrilled at the opportunity to,
10 you know, do $10,000, perhdps, less in, you know,
11 in pancake breakfast and hoagie sales and maybe t2 spend a littIe more time on their primary
13 mission.
I4 In terms of administering the
15 program, looking ahead, will we see any changes
1-6 with the application process for the upcoming t7 year as compared to the one that's just been
L8 completed. l_9 . COMMISSIONER MANN: I don't see any
20 substantial changes to next yearrs program. The
2t General Assembly was gracious enough last year to
22 put a litt1e faith.in myself and other members of
23 my staff in the emergency management agency t,o
24 develop the guidelines for the program.
25 I think the program was has been 24
L very successful this year. I know last year when
2 we discussed Lhe possibility of using an online
3 application there were some folks that raised an
4 eyebrow that we werenrt it wasnrt going t'o
5 work very weIl
6 Of the the nbar1Y 2600
7 appl j-cat ions that we received, there were only 62.
B of those that were paper applications
9 CHAIRMAN ARGAI-rI-r: That I s incredible.
10 COMMISSIONER MANN: So the caPacitY,
11 the internet capacity is far better than anybody l2 had anticipated. r.3 CHAIRMAN ARGALL: RePresentative t4 Evans .
15 REPRESENTATIVE EVANS: Thank You,
16 Mr. Chairman. Good morning. I'd like to ask the
l7 director a litt1e bit about your budget. Irve
l_8 noticed here on your security line item that
19 therers a cut of 4.65 mil1ion. Exactly what
20 te11 me a liutIe bit about that. Whatrs that cut
2'J. in your budget?
22 DIRECTOR SANKO: I t,hink we as we
23 have seen additional influx of federal resources'
24 the ability to spend. those federal resources on
25 our types of programs, w€ have been able to have 25
L corresponding reductj-on on Lhe pressure on the
2 state general fund.
3 REPRESENTATIVE EVANS: Thank You.
4 Second thing is the Urban Search and Rescue I
5 noticed that it says that the feds pay for, but
6 the training is required from the state. But f
donrt see anything listed for that.
8 DIRECTOR SANKO: The training is
9 also an eligible cost on the federal do1lars.
10 There are two urban search and rescue teams. One
L1 is a f ederal team that's recogrnized and f unded l2 entirely by the federal- government by a direct
13 appropriation.
L4 Tbe second Eeam, which is in Ehe
L5 process of being developed and deployed for to
16 be used here in Pennsylvania in the event that
L7 our team would be called out of state, so werre
1B not left without representatiorl, is a state team
19 that is not eligible f or a d'irect'f ederal
20 appropriation. But it is eligible for our
2t homeland security do1lars, which are d'esignated
22 to the state and to PEMA as a state
23 administrative agency so that w€, last year, were
24 able to fund our state Urban Search and' Rescue
25 ef f ortst training opportunit,ies with the f ederal 26
l_ homeland security do11ars. And it wouLd be our
2 intent do that as well this Year
? REPRESENTATIVE EVANS: Thank You,
4 Mr. Chairman.
5 CHAIRMAN ARGAI-rL: Representative
6 zug .
7 REPRESENTATM ZUG: Thank You,
B Mr. Chairman. I have a question, a couple, on
9 'the 911 system. The federal the federal t0 courts have issued an order for the phone
1l_ companies, years ago I believe it was 1995 t2 that we need to do this 9Ll- system for cell
L3 phones. We have started collect j-ng moD€Y, I rm
L4 assumirg, on the tax that was imposed
15 DfRECTOR SANKO: That actuallY will t-6 begi.n, law goes into ef f ect on March 29. The t7 utiLity, the phone companies would be required to
1B make that first payment at the eira of that
L9 quarter. we would anticipate seeing the first
20 revenue coming into that f und in ,Ju1y of thi s
2t year.
22 REPRESENTATrv ZUG: And there are
23 other sEates that have some systems up and
24 running. Whatts our time fine to get a 9LL
25 system in Pennsylvania? 27
L DIRECTOR SANKO: Well, we have a 91
2 system. I mean, werre going to be working
J REPRESENTATIVE ZUG: Upgraded for
4 wireless
5 DIRECTOR SANKO: The upgraded for
6 wireless technology, you referenced the federal
7 mandate which the FCC has had kind of a rolling
B schedule on. There have been dgadlines. When
9 they werenrt met they set a new deadline, a new
10 deadl ine .
L1 Werre it's our intent to work t2 with our counties. They've got to develop 9L1-
L3 plans county by county, an updated wireless plan
L4 as they've d.one with our wire plan bef ore any of
15 the funds can be reallocated.
16 Itts our inte.nt to be actually
1,7 already begun working with'them. We woul'd
1B anti"cipate that within within a year we'If- be
19 able to start having that ro11 out across the
20 state. How long it will take to be in all 67
2t counties I can't te11 you because I honestly hive
22 to sit here today and te11 you that even on the
23 wired side of 91L it was only -:- which has been
24 around for a lot of years, it was only this
25 past this past year t,hat one of the count,ies 2B
opted to j oin int'o the system.
REPRESENTATfVE ZIJG: Now watching
3 one of the national news broadcasts, some of the
4 states are collecting the fees and not spending
5 them on this wireless 911 system. We're noL
o going to do that Irm sure. But comments or what
7 safeguards we have to make sure the money
B collect'ed goes directly into this system?
9 DIRECTOR SANKO: We11, the
L0 guid.elines that will be developed will be very
Ll- clear t,hat it will be f or 911 eligible expenses. t2 It will be used to build build uP the
13 technology..We would also anticipate using some t4 of it for the j-ntegration of our GfS mapping
15 technology, ds well as the integration of our
I6 PEIRS incid.ent tracking syst,€lTlr.and other related
t7 costs. And rg'11 -- we audit that. Every
1-B county's audited. once every three years. ' t9 REPRESENTATIVE ZUG: And in Your
20 comments you talk about making. sure that this
2L wireless system is accessible to everybody in
22 pennsylvania. A few weeks ago I was upstate at a
23 friend of mine's cabin and there's no wire
24 service there.
25 What kind of mechanism are you going 29
L to do to make sure there are towers every place
2 in Pennsylvania and whors going to ultimately pay
3 for those towers?
4 DIRECTOR SANKO: I think when I
5 reference that we want to have the same leve1 of
6 service if you have a ceII phone that you can
7 dial 91L on and can get service., I want there to
B be the same type of service, the same the
9 county.a.bility to locate where'that phone calL is l_0 will be the same whether you're in the middle of.
1L the Allegheny Forest or if yourre in downLown t2 PhiladeIphia. The technology will exist and be
13 in,place to be able to locate where that call is
L4 coming from
15 REPRE S ENTAT I VE ZUGz Sure. But the
16 towers in the middle of the Allegheny Forest t7 don 1t exi st . So t,here f ore, when you're your
18 cel 1 phone, you' re a hiker, you get injured --
L9 DIRECTOR SANKO: This system
20 we I re charged with developing the 91-1 system.
2T We I mean, I would take in that process
22 werd partner with the cel1ular industry. I mean
23 there was a responsibility in t,he industry to
24 help build out those communities that don't have
25 ce11 service. I don't envision or believe that L anybody intended that any of this fee would be
2 used to build ce11 towers in areas of the staEe
3 that d.ontt have coverage. Thatrs a private
4 sector responsibility and not one that the
5 governmentr ought to be readilY in.
6 REPRBSENTATIVE ZVGz So You're
7 saying werre not, going to use the tax money to 'but B build towers, there will be a worki-ng ef f ort
9 with the ce11 industry to make sure that we cover
10 all of Pennsylvania with towers to have access to
11 this service?
t2 DIRECTOR SANKO: Yes.
13 REPRESENTATIVE ZUG: OkaY. Thank
L4 you, Mr. Sanko, Mr. Chairman.
15 CHAIRMAN ARGALL: RePresentative
L6 LaGro t t a
t7 REPRESENTATIVE I,AGROTTA: ThANK,YOU,
1B Mr. Chairman. Mr. Sanko, I want to follow up on
19 some queptions that Chairman Evans asked you
20 about the security and on recurring security
21, granEs.
22 The answer that You gave was that
23 federal funds are increasing. Irm looking at the
24 governorrs budget, and it says that Lhe available r03-'O4, 25 federal funds for security in the 3L
L present fiscaL year, was g6.68 mi1li'on.. And it
2 drops in .the 20O4 -2005 budget to 63.9 mi1lion.
3 I was wondering if you could tell me
4 where dollars f mean, clearly therers a .those 5 d.rop in f ederal f unds. But what were those
6 werre losing training grants and planning grants.
7 What were.we Lraining for and planning for?
8 DIRECTOR SANKO: OkaY. Letr me first'
9 go back and say that when t,he budget submissions
L0 were required and that number was put in", it
11, was I don't want Lo say a place holder, but it
I2 was an estimate as to what we thought might be
13 coming.
L4 . We subsequently.know that the amount
15 of money coming from Washington. at this point is
- L6 in excess .of - f or 2004 is in excess of a t7 hundred million dollars. so it is not in t..iity
1B a reduct ion.
19 REPRESENTATIVE LAGROTTA: So it's
20 realIy going up.
2L DIRECTOR SANKO: So the federal
22 resources will actually go up and we will- be
23 asking for an adjustmenL in the federal for
24 authorization to use those f.ederal funds.
25 REPRESENTATIVE LAGROTTA: What - - 32
1_ and frm looking at the state budget. It has the
2 blue line of the state dollars for training and
3 planning. What was that for, county?
4 DIRECTOR SANKO: The' state plairning
5 and training grants were grants that went to the
6 county operations centers, where they were
7 count,y emergency management operat,ions where they
I were, in fact, doing planning activities,
9 updating the municipal plans, the "county p1ans,
10 and county emergency plans in some cases', the
LL county conEinuity of government p1ans, and also t2 doing training for local officials, for municipal
13 officials to be able to implement and t'est and.
L4 drill and exercise on those updated p1ans. l_5 REPRESENTATf VE LTAGROTTA: Okay. I 'm
L5 trying to move all these big works out of the way t7 here.
L8 Question, if I could, sir, for
19 Mr. Mann, Commissioner. You talked about, the
20 application process for the fire grants.
2L COMMISSIONER MANN: YCS, SiT.
22 REPRESENTATfVE LAGROTTA: And that z3 only 62 of them were only on paper. I represent
24 quite a f ew very, very smal-l volunteer f ire . 25 departments. And one of the complaints that Lhey 33
1 brought to my attention was that they didn't .f eeI
2 as if they were being included in consideration
3 for these grants. Is there some sort of a. -- of
+ a membership level or a population?
5 I mean, I think part of the reason
6 why so many applications and this is just my
7 own view
I large departments have that kind. of access.
9 the smaLler, 2O - , 3 0 -member fire Ih.reas L0 departments don't have internet access, aren't t-1 technologically aware of how 'to do Lhat.
L2 And I know from my own experience in
13 having fireinen, fire chiefs bring in applications l4 for community and economic development grants'
L5 that the applications somet imes are fil1ed out l_6 improperly, that they don't know their FEIN
L7 number.
1B Is there some way that'we can make
19 it easier and more friendly for these smaller
20 departments, which if you want to get down to it,
2L in my opinion, need the money more?
22 COMMISSIONER MANN: Any fire company
23 that met- the criteria in the 1aw as being a
24 charLered nonprofit volunteer fire company who
25 responded to a single call in'the previous year 34
1 is eligible for the grant.
2 There were mailings done to every
3 fire company that we have mailing lists for in
4 early September, late August asking people to
5 complete a W-9 and return to us'. If a fire
6 company did noL have the ability Lo apply on
7 line, they could simply request the paper
B application. When they completed the paper
9 application and returned it to our office, had
10 one staff member that input application the
11- paper applications that we received into the data t2 base
L3 If there were probLems with that t4 application, that paper application where'we
15 didn't understand the narrative or there was
16 information missi.g, a telephone call 'was made to
I7 those individual departments to clarify what the
18 problems were.
19 We went one step further. On
20 December 31st this year everybody had nearly
2l trwo years or Ewo months to complete t'he
22 application. In 2OOO that time frame was nearly
23 3 0 days
24 On December 3Lst the legislation
25 required.us, that was the 'at 4 P.m.r that was 1 the cut-off for the grant Program.
2 We had 155 applications that were in
3 the system electronically that had not been
4 submitted as of the 4:00 deadline.
5 I spent the next two daYs and went
6 through every one of those applications
7 individually and reviewed each and every one of
B them. If all of the information was there and' it
9 appeared to be that the mistake was made that the
10 individuaL simply didn't push the submit to oSFc : L1 button, I submitted the application.
t2 Ti11 r was finished with that
13 process, we' ended up with 59 app.licat j-ons trhat
l4 were incompl-ete, where an individual f ire
15 department may have done nothing more than put a
15 user ID and a password in the application and
t7 never touched the rest, of the application.
LB Thatts the effort that we undertook.
t9 I f any f i re company had. cal- l ed and
20 wanted a paper application, they simply had to
2t either send us a letter requesting the .
22 application and a paper application was sent to
23 t hem o 24 DIRECTOR SANKO: If I could follow 25 on that, one based on the success that the 36
1 Fire Commissioner had with the number of t 2 appticants. filing online, one, I think it leads
3 us to prett,y quick conclusion that when there afe
4 resources available, if it means you have to find
.f, a computer you'11 find one, and whether you go to
6 a public library or to your legislator 6r
7 Senator's office to use theirs.
B One of the values, and what wefre
9 going to actually do on the emergency management
l_0 side, is begin to take the disaster application
L1 process and to automate that, in fact, letting
T2 those people f ile -: f il-e those f orms on l-ine, ds.
l_3 weLl request for assistance. .
L4 One of the values of that is and
L5 I think itts the ultimate in customer service and
16 being user friendly, because as yourre going
L7 through the questionnaire, Yo n't go Eo the
L8 next line unless you've filled in the zip cod'e
1_9 correctly. You canrt go to the next line unless
20 you put the phone number in.
2L we believe that, You know, PeoPle
22 will spend more time spelling their name right
23 than perhaps somebody who doesn't know Ehem.
24 So when the checks are issued theY
25 wonrt have to be reissued as a result of 37
:1 mistakes
2 So a lot of automated process will
3 allow for quick turnaround and response and not'
4 require as much ind.ividual rev'i.ew, which will
5 free us
o important things without us having. to ask f or '. 7 more staff in the out years.
g REPRE S ENTAT M I-,AGROTTA: Thank You ,
9 Mr. Chairman
L0 CHAIRMAN ARGALL: RePresentative
1L F1eag1e.
i l2 i REPRESENTATTVE FT,EAGI-rE: Thank you,
L3 Mr. Chairman. Mr. Sanko, you talked. in your
'I 74 testimony on Page 3 al>out installing the 8OO
l_5 megahertz radios in every 911 center and you
L6 aIso, iI like this phrase, that we would all have
1,7 a common technology platform
L8 I I know not last year but in previous
19 years when Dave Smith was I guess Dave Smith
20 served in both your positions, didn't he, at one
2! time or another? Not important. But I asked him
22 this: Did. we and I still feel antsy about it
23 and I want Mr. Sanko, if you can, al1ay my o 24 fear on this. 25 This is what I see haPPening. MaYbe 3B
1 Irm wrong.. Yourre going to instaLL, and f assume
2 the state pays for installing those BO0 megahertz
3 centers ?
t DIRECTOR SANKO: Yes.
5 REPRESENTATIVE FLEAGLE: OT IhC
6 the BOO megahertz connections in the 911 centers.
7 And then eventually every department is going to
I have to have some kind of connection to an BOO
9 megahertz radio system.
10 Now, I was told that, we11, it will
11 on.Iy have to be the" chief ; you'11 only need one.
t2 But Irm seeing that there is a push, maybe itrs a o l-3 de facto push, to have 8oo megaheriz radios in t4 every fire engine, in every ambulance, in
L5 every with every'officer. And I know what
16 those Motorolas cost. They are just out of
t7 sight. They're good radios. f have one.
18 But how are we going to pay for the
L9 install-ation or for the provision of those
2A radios? I say we because I know the counties
2t are going to scream about paying paying,
22 number one, for the towers. I understand the B0O
23 megahert,z towers have to be closer together or
24 you have to have a set of repeaters. But there's i 25 a 1ot of money involved there. 39
l_ And, you know, those companies are
2 going ome to us, because the county's not
3 go j-ng . to supply every company with with 15
4 radio in rigs. I am j ust scared^ to death that's
5 going to go that d.irection. There's not enough
6 money out there so far, and yet here we are
7 developing this BOO megahertz system, .which i's a
I great, syst em. Irve been in ambulances before
9 where you 9et, you know, a hole and you just l-0 canlt talk to each other.
1l_ But whors going to pay for all that?
L2 DIRECTOR SANKO: One of the benefits
13 of bei'ng here in 2OO4 as opposed to being here t4 several years ago is that wetve seen new
15 technofogy come to the market that enables us to
16 answer these questions differently with greater t7 certainty.
1B First of all, on the building out of
19 the system and the tower placement, the
20 commonwealth has invested some $4OO million to
2L develop that system across across
22 Pennsylvania. And when completed it will have 95
23 percent coverage , 95 percent of the counties.
24 Thatts done in partnershiP with, in
25 s ome instances, the Commonwealth constructing 40
1 towers, in many instances hanging repeaters. Irm
2 not a radio technician so I -- you know, Pdrdon ' 3 h€, if there are any in the room, that I use the
4 wrong terms.
5 REPRESENTATIVE FLTEAGLE: I don'L
6 know the difference Itve been in this five, J six years
B DIRECTOR SANKO: Hanging something
9 on a tower.
10 REPRESENTATIVE FI-,EAGLE: low band
LL or high band, I donrt know. And what Irm
T2 concerned about, It11 use my own county, Franklin t_3 County, that will have to install an inordinate l4 amount of repeaters or new towers themselves.
15 And you're saying that that 's - - that wonrt have
Lo to happen? t7 DIRECTOR SANKO: We believe Lhat l_8 the technically that the system will have 95
19 percent covefage'and in 95 percent of the
20 counties there.
2t REPRESENTATIVE FLEAGLTE: Installed
22 by the state?
23 DIRECTOR SANKO: We will see
24 there will be some places where the county may
25 want to put up f mean, therers as you drive 4t
1 around' Pennsylvania, while there's an awful 1ot
2 of green there's also an awful 1ot of the towers
3 stj.cking up out of the ground
4 RE PRESENTATTVE FI-TEAGLE: Sure - ;
5 understand that
6 DIRECTOR SANKO: We neeci to work
7 with our partners who own those towers, because
d theyI re t:a al l Commonwea1 th owned.
9 REPRESENTATIVE FLTEAGLE: And I j ust
10 want to, what do you think is the average cost of
LL a hand-heId MotoroIa, 800 bucks?
t2 DIRECTOR SANKO: Donr t know. But I
13 did I don't have the price. We can get that
L4 for you for sure. But I would say as we move
L5 f orward wit,h the new t,echnology that's on the
16 mark.et that therers a black box, if you wi11,
t7 that will connect existing Legacy Systems and the
18 8OO megahertz systems. So it's not going to
19 require an B0O in every at every outlet. I
20 mean, there are there is now technology and
2t part.of our interoperable communication grants
22 moving forward is buying those kinds of.converter
23 boxes, enable those different types of systems to
24 interoper work together.
25 REPRESENTATIVE FLEAGI-rE: Are you 1 familiar with Cumberland County's system? ... 2 DIRECTOR SANKO: Yes.
3 REPRESENTATfVE FLEAGLE: They and
,4 please forgive me because I donrt know all the
5 facts. my understanding, what, two or three 1t': 6 years ago the county paid, I believe it was, $2
7 million to convert their system to the BO0
B megahert z .
9 , DIRECTOR SANKO: I that I don't
10 know t_L REPRESENTATIVE FI-TEAGI-rE: I think it t2 was that: That was county paid. And I don't l_3 know of any Cumberland. County people here. My t4 only fear is not only that the county spent the
money put that, this technology is L5 then .developed 16 and and then it's made obsolete. And they
L:I could have spent $1O,OOO whereas before they l_8 spent 2 mil1ion.
19 DIRECTOR SANKO: I think in'looking
20 down the road, you know, when these d.ecisions
2l were made, you know, some six, seven years ago to
22 go the 800 route, while they were criticized by
23 some as being short-sighted, at the end. of the
24 day they were reaIIy quite visionary and it was
25 futuristic technology 43
l_ We are seeing that, the FCC is moving 'towards z designating a particular area of the band
3 width for public safety. rt does happen Eo be
.4 the 8OO megahertz band width.
5 So I think at end of day as we move
6 forward werre going to see the platform of the
7 8OO being in place for quite sometime.
B REPRESENTATIVE FLEAGLE: MY time is
9 up. But I will work with you. And I think you
L0 know what my fears are, about everybody having to
11 buy enormous amounEs of radio equipment to keep l2 up with that. And maybe that ' s the way we have
13 Lo go. But, the way cost is now for equipment and
T4 then to throw this on top of private companies I
15 t,hink would j ust be an in j ustice .
16 DIRECTOR SANKO: There is there
I7 are demands on the system, but you know, I don't
1B think we ought t,o lose track of the tremendous
l_9 amount of resources that are out there available
20 to help pay the bills on those systems. Between
2L the t.he state assistance - - staLe f unds,
22 between what's eligible for 9L!, for building up
23 those kind of communication systems, between
24 whatrs available for homeland security funds,
25 between the state fire grants, between the 44
1 f ederal f ire grants, between the ot,her resources
2 that are made available through the Fire Relief
3 Associations. I mean, there are hundreds of
+ millions of . dol1ars. And our challenge in the
5 public safety world is to figure out how to best
6 coordinate and facilitate the spending of those
7 doflars wisely instead of, you know, €Verybody
8 getting their own system.
9 REPRESENTATIVE FLEAGLE : Thank you. l_0 Sorry I went ove r my t ime , Mr . Cha j- rman .
1_1 CHAIRMAN ARGAI-rL : Representative
L2 MeIio. t3 REPRESENTATIVE MEIJIO : Thank You,
14 Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, it boggles my mind' that
15 we do not'know how many fire -: volunteer fire
L6 companies are in the Commonwealth. How do we get t7 statistics? How do we know how many fire
18 companies.participate in the programs that we
19 have if we have no knowledge of how many we have?
20 fs there anything the legislature
2t can do to require the municipalities to 1et you
22 know how many fire companies they have so that we
23 can put this on line? I notice that there was a
24 73,OOO decrease in financial support for the
25 State Fire Commissioner. Maybe that should be L put back in the budget. But you know, thatrs
2 serious problem in my eyes.
3 COMMISSIONER MANN: First of all-,
+ sir, the decrease that you see in my budget is
5 between this year and last year is that I have
6 two retirements that Itm dealing with this year
7 and we were able to get the league buyouts into
B the current budget so I could hire those people
9 immediately upon the retirements rather than
10 having to wait ti11 the next fiscal year.
LL I donlt sir, to be perfectly
L2 honest with you, I have a tit1e, a rather nice
13 tit1e. But I have absolutely no authority to l4 mandate that any fire department in Pennsylvania
15 do anything.
16 If I -- I can go to any fire t7 departmenE. I can beg them. I can cajole them.
1B I can offer them incentives. I can even become
19 very honest and frank with them. And at the end
20 of the d.y, if they te11 me to go fIy a kite,
2t Ehat's exactly what I'11. do is go f Iy a kit,e.
22 There there is no staLute t,hat
23 gives me the authority or for that matter the
24 d.irector the authority to mandate that a fire
25 a fire department in Pennsylvania report 46
1 anything o 2 Thatts one of the reasons why, one,
3 we wanted to do the electronic the online
4 grant application this year. For the first time
5 ever we have been able to collect information
6 elect.ronical ly that may give us some idea as to
7 just what the universe is as far as the fire
8 service is concerned, how many members there.
9 actually are, what their budgets are like.
1o In addition to the online grant
11 application, their requirement that somebody
l2 agree to participate in the Pennsylvania Fire
l:3 Information Reporting System will puL us in a
t4 position that perhaps voluntarily we can get
15 'enough fire departments, and eventually
16 eventually perhaps it wiLl become a requirement
t7 to participate in the PennFIRS program in order
1B for you to qualify for not only a state grant,
r_9 but a 1ow interest loan that you have to agree to
20 participate in the PennFIR'S program.
2t Pennsylvania is one of a handful of
22 states that cannot provide data to the U.S. Fire
23 Administration or the National'Fire Protection
24 Association on a timely basis because we simply
25 have nothing in place currently to collect it, 47
1 nor do we.have the ability to force anybody to
2 report i t, t,o us .
3 REPRESENTATIVE MELIO: WeLl, ds a
4 state representative, I have the same problem you
5 have. I mean, there are volunteers werre dealing
6 with and we can't teII them what, to do and what
7 not to do. They have to want to it. But we .do 8 should know how many we have.
9 DIRECTOR SANKO: If I could, one of
L0 the challenges which it comes down to, you know,
L1 how many do we have, you know, you may have, You t2 know, two or three or four folks who get together
13 who form a fire department, submit an
1,4 application, and may not respond to a fire over
15 the course of the year. You know, does that
16 constitute a f ire d.epartment ? t7 I mean, I think one of the things
18 that as we go about the busj-ness of increasing
1_9 accountability, the application process and some
20 of the thresholds, the PennFIRS the f.porting, 2t onlj-ne registration is intended to weed out some
22 of those, some of those things.
23 We have found and ultimatelY at,
24 the end of the day, audits when these funds go
25 out and come back will identify some of those 4B
some of those deficiencies, and have. And
z Auditor General Casey should be commended for
3 those that he's found. But. there are instances
+ where the funds just just go out. '5 It is, you know, sometimes troubling
6 to see, you know, ds it relates to fire relief
.T funds that are distributed by a department and
B audited by the same department, one might suggest
9 that you may want to look at trying to
10 consolidate fire funding into the fire l_ l_ commissionerrs office so that he could be abLe to
L2 better better give him some of the tools r.3 and responsibilities to be able to facilitate and
L4 coordinate this process moving forward. without l_5 losing the independent auditor. t6 REPRESENTATIVE MELIO: You know, a
J,7 Lot of companies are regionalizing and getting
J-6 together. If they do form an ap_plication, we
L> should know about it,. We should know how many.
20 COMMISSIONER MANN: One of the
2t things t,hat I rm hopef u1 as we look into the
22 immediate future is a year ago I had asked for a
23 resolution, a joint resolution to form a
24 bipartisan committee. And senate resolution has
25 been passed. For whatever reason we haven't had 49
1 the firs.t meeting. But I will te11 you today
2 that, some t, ime thi s month I am going to convene
3 the first meeting of the individuals who have :
+ been appointed to SR-60 so we can take a look
5 at -- and sR-60 is made up of individuals from
6 from 1oca1 government agencies, such as the
7 Boroughts. Association, the T,eague of Cities, the
I f ire service, and the EIVIS services represented
9 not only the volunteer community'but the career
10 community as well
1L General _Assembly. L2 Perhaps with input from all of those o 13 organizations we might be able to esLablish some I4 legislation that will once and for all'puL us all
L5 in a position that we can actually get. ott,arms
L6 around whatrs going on.
t7 Sir, one of my biggest f rus.trations
18 is, and the director touched on it, I'm saying Eo I L9 you that I can t , on any given day, .tell you how
20 many fire departments there are.
2t CHAIRMAN ARGALL: We need to : 22 werre over our time limit.
23 COMMISSIONER MANN: OkaY. Irm
24 sorry. o not a 25 CHAIRMAN ARGAI,I,: Just 50
question but a comment. I certainly hope werre
2 not issuing $1O,OOO checks to people who are only
3 pretending to be a fire department. Thank You,
+ Representative.
5 REPRESENTATIVE MELIO: Thank you.
6 CHAI RMAN ARGALII : RepresentaEive ; 7 Forci-er.
U REPRESENTATIVE FORCIER: Thank you,
9 Ivtr. Chairman, Mr. Sanko, Commissioner Mann,
10 welcome, good morning. Mr. Sanko, in your
l_1 testimony on Page 2 this morning you talked about
L2 working closely with the Governor's Homeland o 13 Security Adviser, the Pennsylvania State Police, 14 DeparEment of Health, National Guard, DEP, and
15 Agriculture, and some other organizations.
16 Can you be a littIe more specific?
t7 S j-nce f represent a rural area, Crawf ord County,
1B can you g j-ve me an idea of speci f ically what PEMA
19 does to work.with our agricultural community?
20 DIRECTOR SANKO: Actua1ly, sorry.
2t PEMA is -- at the end of the day, we don't make
22 anything. We donlt we coordinate and
23 facilitate and share information, so we would be
24 working with the both through the Department
25 of Agriculture, they would be taking the lead 5l_
wirh . ir.
2 We woul-d bring to bear their ability
3 to coordinate with the Federal Department of
4 Agriculture as well as the 1oca1 extension
5 offices, to coordinate with the regional task
6 force up there in northwest, which as you know is
7 cha j-red by Steve in Crawf ord 'County. And as we
B go about facilitating that process, bringing
o those stakeholders to bear in the. assessment,
L0 they were able to identify specific risks to the
1L agriculture community
t2 I mean, it's a huge industry in
13 Pennsylvania. ft's but as we look around the :
1,4 stat€, there are different types of risks in
15 different types of communities. -ltd that wetve
t5 tried to use that assessment, werre waiting for
L7 Washington it approve the assessment and the
L8 strategy as we move forward so we can begin to
L9 implement some of the strategy steps.
20 REPRESENTATIVE FORCIER: Okay.
2t That 's great. One Last questi-on. You
22 collectively regularly meet with t,he regional
23 counterterrorism task force. Irm assuming that
24 there .are re'presentatives f rom the agricultural
25 committee or community on that committee. 52
L DIRECTOR SANKO: There are. Each
2 task force has as many as lL subcommittees
J fire, €ffiergeDCy, medical, 1aw' enforcement,
4 criticaf infrastructure, agriculture. All those
5 different groups meet. And werve asked, you
6 know, obviously there aren't -- therets probably
7 notr an agriculture representative from some of
I the urban areas, but in rural areas there - - each
9 county would have no less than one and in many
t_0 cases more.
11 REPRESENTATM FORCIER: OkaY.
1-2 Thank you, Mr. Sanko. Thank you, Mr; Chairman.
13 ' cHAI RMAN ARGAI-rr-r: Repre s ent at ive
l4 Baker.
15 REPRESENTATIVE BAKER: Thank you,
L6 Mr. Chairman. May I commend both of you
17 gentlemen for the great services you provide. I
18 think we all have a renewed sense of appreciation
L9 for. our first responders and our homeland
20 security ef f ort,s since g / ll . And I want to thank
2t You and the ":":"", 22 ":.,,:::,:'";;,",':," 23 regarding the grant program, the stat,e grant
24 program. Is there any possibility that there,
25 once the distribution of funds has been made 53
L finally to our volunteer fire companies and EMS
2 personnel, . our ambulance associations, is there
3 any possibility that there is going to be a
4 surplus of those funds remaining?
5 COMMfSSIONER MANN: No, sj-r.
6 RBPRESENTATIVE BAKER: Okay. Second
7 question -- that te11s that in a hurry. The
8 second question is a fo11ow-up question that
9 werve heard recurring here, and it is one that I
l_0 actually brought up to the Governor last year in
LL my district when he came up to our economic
t2 dewelopment summit, and that is the terrible
13 reception that we have with the ce11 tower
T4 situation in rural areas, especially my district,
15 L500 square mil-es. Very concerned about about
t6 the lack of ce11 tower service because of the.
1,7 negative impact that has on economic development.
1B . But it sounds like regardless of
19 whether we are able to geU the private industry
20 to establish ce11 towers in that area, it sounds
21 l ike wer re going to be abl-e to respond
22 adequately, I hope, with the 911 ce11 phone
23 service.
24 DIRECTOR SANKO: We11, if if the
25 private industry doesn't provide ce11 service 54
1 a community, I mean, wet1l .into not be.able to
2 to manufacture out of thin air what does'n I t
3 exist.
4 We - - what we want to build at the
5 county level in terms of having the ability to
6 respond, if ce11 technology exists in the
7 community, we want to be have a certainty that
B the ability that to pinpoint where that calL came
9 from is identical across Pennsylvania.
L0 As we go through and, you know, are
1L building, in some cases, our towers for the BOO
t2 megahert.z, those sites become available f or some
l_3 of the ce11 companies to hang their transmitters
74 on. So that should heIp. As we.-- as they build
15 out into certain communities, they put up towers. 'h.rrg 16 .rrg we r. our s i t e s on the i rs . t7 It's competitive industry. I mean,
1B you know, I think we probably go a whole Iot
19 further and perhaps in one of your ot,her
20 committees or when have you the industry before
2t ygu you can figure out how to get them to instead.
22 of building two towers next to each other to have
23 competing service, how they can agree to spend
24 the same amount of motr€y, but to provide
25 di f ferent 55
l_ towers are to expand coverage
2 REPRESENTATIVE BAKER: ft just seems
3 to me since Pennsylvania is one of the most rural
4 and largest states in the nation that we have
5 some potential gaps here with regard to the
5 possibility of life and death situations not
7 being responded to because of the lack of that
I private sector stepping up to the plate and
9 providing those those ce11 phone towers.
10 And if there's anything that, your
1L office can do and working with the Governorrs t2 office to encourage that, that is a recurring
L3 complaint that I hear, if not weekly, every other
T4 week from the business community and individ.uals l_5 alike in rural areas.
16 The other question related somewhat
I7 to that i s a county-wid.e emergency radio syst,em
L8 thatrs been alluded to earlier. Irve been
tq contacted in the last year by both of Tioga
20 County Emergency Services personnel as well as
2L Bradford County Emergency Services foLks that 'they 22 would like to see a county-wide system in
23 p1ace. And f or each count,y iU would it, wouLd.
24 cost, over a million d.o1lars to be able to
25 accomplish this. And just recently I had a 56
1 discussion with one of our county commissioners
2 about this.
3 You had mentioned federal grants,
4 state grants, lit,any of potential f unding - 5 sources. What would be the best potential
candidate for helping those two eounties, in
7 particular, toward t,hat goal of achieving?
8 DfRECTOR SANKO: I think at the end
9 of the d.y, the quick answer to that is through
L0 the regional counterterrorism task forces. I l_L mean, one of the things for the federal homeland
12 security money that was an eligible expense was
L3 interoperable communication systems, if they l4 included that over the course of the last six
15 months in their strategy as an unmet need then it
16 would be eligible for a share of that money.
T7 You know, do we have at the end of
1B the day a fu11 assurance that the federal t_9 government is going to fullY fund. our wish list?
20 No. And I suspect noL. But if itrs in the
2t strategy, i t I s in the assessment, we can begin to
22 prioritize iL as we move forward. and building out
23 that sysEem.
24 REPRESENTATIVE BAKER: And the last
25 guestion I have regards the statewide d.isaster 57
l_ emergency assistance bill that ave. f would
2 appreciate the opportunity to'discuss that with
3 you. I know a 1ot. of utility companies,
4 corporations support it, rural electric people
5 support it, and just seems to me as one of the
6 largest states in lhe nation that we should make
7 every good f aith ef f ort t o have the statew j-de
8 d.isaster assj-stance program here in Pennsylvania
9 and not j ust d.epend on the f ederal government to t_0 fill the gaps cracks that people faLl
11 through. Thank you very much, Mr. Sanko. t2 DIRECTOR SANKO: We would be haPPY
13 to have those conversations and explore those l4 opportunities, so long as it doesn't infringe
L5 upon our availability to access federa]
15 resources. t7 ' REPRESENTATM BAKER: I' agree.
1B Thank you.
19 . CHAIRMAN ARGALL: RepresentaLive
20 Wheatley
27 REPRESENTATIVE WHEATLEY: Thank You,
22 Mr. Chairman,-and good. morning. f have a
23 question,'ds it relates to some of our volunteer
24 fire companies, as it relates to your cuts.
25 Actua11y, in here f see the Governorrs proposing $136,000 increase to the information . system
2 management; is that correct?
3 DIRECTOR SANKO: Whi ch : Irm sorry.
4 wha t I rne are you in?
5 PE PRES ENTAT I VE WHEATI,EY : Irm
actual 1y looking at some of own notes. Irm 6 .my
7 Iooking at $L36,00O, 13 percent increase for
informat ion system management.
9 DIRECTOR SANKO: OkaY.
10 REPRESENTATTVE WHEATI-TEY: I s that
11 correct ?
L2 DIRECTOR SANKO: There are
13 noq sure where that specific l-3 percent figure t4 comeb from. But there have been some increases
15 in our information management f1ow. We had some
1_6 costs that were in. prior years that have been
I7 dropped out that were one-time, nonrecurring
18 cosLs.
L9 There are some figures moving
20 forward that for information flow that cou1d.
2t could be the user fee or t,he fees that we pay to
22 interconnect Ehe emergency alert system, which
23 would be digital. I can get more detail and get
24 back to you
25 REPRESENTATIVE WHEATLEY: MY real 59
l_ question goes to some of our volunteer fire'
2 companies not being abl-e to afford their own
3 radio systems. The equipment is too expensive.
4 WouLd they be able to apply or are there
.5 mechanism for them to apply to the state to be
6 able to help them with that, that cost?
7 DIRECTOR SANKO: There ProbablY
c' would be several several outLets. And' I don't
9 mean to jump in on the fire committee. ,But l_0 certaS-n1y to .the state, the state grant would be
11 an option, the f ederal grant woul d be an opt' ion,' t2 as well as making application through the task
- L3 force, through : for the federal homeland t4 security fundings.
15 REPRESENTATIVE WHEATI-TEY: ANd I 'M l_6 assuming thaE somewhere in one of your
L7 departments someone has explained that to them
18 and will be available for technical assistance
19 for those companies?
20 DIRECTOR SANKO: We have and what
2'L werve actually further done is each of the sub
22 each of the task forces have now have a very
23 active int,eroperable communication subcommittee.
24 And we have assigned staff to. assist that
25 subcommittee, both f rom the 8OO rad.io proj ect 60
L office in the Governorrs Office of
2 Administ,ration, as well- as from the technical
3 services folks at PEMA
+ REPRESENTATIVE WHEATI-rEY: Thank you
5 CHAf RMAN ARGALI, : RePre sentat ive
h^'l'1 .. S 6 Lro,J-J-y, ! inal question.
ENTAT I VE DAI,IIY : Thank you, .7 RE PRE S I Mr. Chairman. This is a letter for Mr. Sanko
9 or question for Mr. Sanko. Therers a house bill
10 Lhat is presently pending that woul'd move the
LL oversight of EMS from the Department of Health to
L2 PEMA. I was wondering if you have an opinion on
L3 that.
T4 DIRECTOR SANKO: We11, I think that
15 without getting into a dispute of whose flagpol-e
15 one salutes, at the end of the day werve spent a
L7 1ot of time and werre seeing it at the federal
18 leve1 a lot more coordination between the
19 Depar.trnent of Homel-and Security and HHS. Werre
20 seeing at the state Ievel a lot more coordination
2t and cooperation between PEMA and the DepartmenL
22 of Health.
23 But because there are still two
24 separate funding streamg for health dollars and
25 other emergency response dol1ars, there may be 61
1 some inefficiencies that are out there. And one
2 of the things that werve been about as. it relates
3 to all of these other programs is to try and pool
4 the resources as much as possible, and to develop
5 a multi-disciplinary response, and to fix those
6 customer service problems.
7 If at the end of the day the users
B of the service or customers donrt feel as though
9 theyrre being served, I mean, Lhat to me is the
L0 ult,imate perf ormance measure. I mean, I fu11y
11 recogni z.e and understand f rom the. budgetary t2 perspective we expect economies and efficiencies.
13 But at the end of the day customer service, I
T4 think, is critical, one of the best performance
15 measures
I6 I do know that, and I don't know
L7 what the wisd.om of the legislature will be as it
LB relates to the ultimate outcome of that bi11, but
19 one of the challenges that werve seen as it --
20 moving forward is we have our nine regional
21 Lerrorism task forces, our I6 different EMS
22 councils. And. the overlap of those districts and
23 different rules and different guidelines between
24 them, that we would obviously encourage from the
25 standardization standpoint, that we maybe look at 62
L the using the map and the baselines.that you all
2 have passed in statute in Act 227 and go to 9
3 regional t,ask f orce or t health districts,
4 which would be a wonderful first step and save
5 some additional money on overheadithat would be
b al-1owed to then be deployed in resources for
''t first responders.
8 RE PRE S ENTAT I VE DAI,IIY :' Irm not
9 r,ea1tO, ure if thatrs an endorse.ment then or
10 youtre jusE open for further discussion on the
L1- matter. But it seems like it makes a 1ot of t2 sense for the EMS to come under your department.
13 DIRECTOR SANKO: We are oP"r, f or l4 f urt.her discussion.
15 RE PRE S ENTAT M DAITLY : Okay . Thank
16 you. t7 CHATRMAN ARGAI,I, : Commissioner Mann,
18 Director Sanko, thank you verY much fof appearing
19 before the committee today.
20 COMMISSIONER MANN: Thank you.
2l DIRECTOR SANKO: You I re welcome.
22 CHAI RMAN ARGALI, : WC turn now to
23 Deoartment of General Services. We will
24 reconvene in a few minutes.
25 (a recess was taken. 63
l_ CHAIRMAN ARGALL: We turn now to the
..- Depart'mentofGenera]Services,DonCunningham, ,2 3 .Tf . , Secretary. Welcome, Mr. Secretary.
+ Before you begin your statement, let
5 me acknowledge that the presence of the chairman
6 of State Government Committ,ee which also has
7 oversight your Department, Representative
B Clymer from Bucks County. Welcome Paul . 9 Please begin, Mr. Secretary.
10 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: Thank You,
1_1 Mr. Chairman'. Do I have to push anything here or
T2 are we okay? Thank you, Mr. Chairman a l_3 Since we have submitted a statement L4 as part of our budget to you, f just will be very
15 brief in terms of an opening statsement.
16 A11 of you are familiar with the
1,'7 role of the Department of General Services as thg
18 chief business operating unit of the executive
L9 branch'of government controlling state
20 purcha s i ng state contractitg, real estate,
2t insurance, and so forth.
22 Clearly one of the initiatives that
23 is new and werre most excited about is our reform
24 and changes to state purchasing, with a focus on
25 saving mi11 ions of dollars for the .taxpayers and 64
1 supplying government workers. to do their j obs.
2 So with that said., I j ust will read
3 just a couple paragraphs of excerpt from a letter
A t sent members of the House through that "we have to 5 the Ma j o.rity Leader Smith, and f ocussing on our
b efforts to aggregate, to bring together our
7 purchasing of some of the larger commod.it,ies and
B services that we use to supply government workers
9 for government operations. And last week we had
L0 great success in initiating t,he inaugural t1 contract of this initiative, which was to the
T2 purchase of office supplies for Commonwealth
L3 workers. l_4 The previous year we had spent i22
15 and a half million to supply the government' r-6 workers with pens, p€nci1s, and the tools that t7 they need to do their jobs in office supplies.
1B Irast week we went out to reverse auction, were
19 able to get a contract savings of about $10
20 mi11ion., So we wenE from a contract cost $22 and
2L a half million to $13 mi11ion.
22 And the final part of that, f want
23 to s&y, in that successful event was beca of a
24 strong interest also in who suppLies us and how
25 they supply us. Our proposal required for all of 65
1 our bidders to have a component of smal1 business
2 to show us what their minority and women-owned
3 business partnerships would be in that
= contracting.
5 Although that contracL is not
6 finalized:because we are negotiating with our top
7 bidders, we have several proposals that would'
8 assure 30 percent of the contract going to sma11
9 business, ffiinority and women-owned smal1
10 business.
11 So I will stop there in my t2 commitment to you to be brief, and allow for you
13 to get inLo any questions you may have about
L4 general servi-cesr budget and operations.
L5 CHAIRMAN ARGAI-rI-r: Thank you very r-6 much, Mt. Secretary. One of the recurring themes
L7 of the last nine days of budget hearings in this
1B committee is to be certain that the different
19 component pieces of the Governorrs proposed
20 budget come together to make sense as an entire
2L document. You and I come from old railroad
22 communit, ies , and you can imagi-ne that i f hal f the
23 railroad Lrack is heading in this direction and
24 the other half is going in the' opposite
25 direction, that train isn't going t'o run very ()o
l_ long or very effectively.
2 And parts of this plan have, I
3 think, rn€mbers of Lhis committ,ee stil1 a bit
+ confused. ' Certainly we understand the Governorl s
5 commitment, which we share, for business
6 development, for j ob creation. This. state has a
7 consid.erable number of grant programs and Ioan
B prog:ams and other f inancial and. program
9 incentives.
L0 Werre talking about adding more this
LL year. I suspect we wi11. But werre also at.the t2 same time struggling with the potent,ial of new l_3 taxes, new fees on some of their employers. We t4 want to make sure that those two components of
15 the budget actually make sense.
16 Now with your departmentts proposal, t7 it sounds as if some employers in Pennsylvania
1B could lose a considerable amount of sal'es to the
19 state government. And so werre concerned with
20 the whole concept of continuity.
2t It certainly sounds to us like
22 good po1 icy if the state is going to go out and
23 pay the rock bottom price, savings of a hundred
24 million dol1ars. I don't think you'1 1 get any
25 complaints from members of this commi ttee about 67
that goaI.
2 But werre also concerned that in
3 anoLher part of the budget werre talking about, I
4 guess, the overall spending plan may grow by
5 upward.s of 872 mill ion f want to make sure f
6 have that number right $fgS million in
7 spending increases.
I So one fear is that any money that
9 your department might save us through trhis
10 program we could have already spent it twice
11 eLsewhere in the budget.
L2 Wefre also hearing a good bit from
l_3 some of our. constituents that this strategic
l4 sourcing initiative could provide something of a
15 considerable upheaval to sma1l employers, to
r_6 medium-sized employers who have worked in
1,7 supplying the Commonwealth'.s needs for many
1B years. And the economists on my staff are using
T9 words like negative mulEiplier, lost wag,es, lost
2o tax berief its, losE employmerrL, lost activity.
2T We want to be sure t,hat the pain is
22 worth the gain. And so I guess in looking at
23 places like Tamaqua and Bethlehem and the towns o 24 of the members of this committee, we.want to be 25 sure that werre not losing j obs in those 68
communities and sending work t,o places Iike .l
2 Little Rock or San Francisco or worse.
Representative Evans has beeri asking
+ some,'. I think, very good questions over the last
5 two weeks about outsourcing and the loss of jobs 'are 6 to other nations. And those concerns that I
7 share . ' And part of your plan, I 'ITl to1d, i f I
I undefstand correctly, that the price reductions
achieved. must be paid, in part, to t'he consultant
L0 who proposed. the initiative. And iL's my
L1 und.erstand,ing that this consultant is i t2 headquartered in sunny, tax-free Bermuda. l-3 And so we want to be sure that, You l4 know, werre not crunching savings out of
15 Pennsylvania employers and. sending t,hem tax free
L6 far from home.
1,7
18 think, euestions on both the macro level and the
19 micro leveI on this initiative.
20 And at - I guess one of our goa1s,
2L and not just you but in all members'of the
22 cabinet, werve asked for short, specific answers
23 so that you and I don I t take up too much of the
24 time. And I'11 be in trouble if there's no time
25 l-eft for the members of the committee is what Irm 69
1 trying to say.
2 And so is there a macro level study
J that has been conducted by the administration to
4 assure us that, indeed, the numbers in this plan
5 make sense, that we arenrt saving money here but
6 losing money over here through, you know, lost
..7 CNA Pennsylvania businesses,
8 more unemployment, you know, the real big
9 picture?
10 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: Thatrs a lot
1L of information you just put forward. I.wi11 do t2 my best to give a short , concise answer to about
13 8 or 10 very key points t4 Let me say this: Yes. That to
L5 answer your quest ion in gfeneral , yes .
15 Understanding the role of the Department of
L7 General Services as a central purchasing agent
1B for the Commonwealth, our job is to provide
19 supplies, commodities, services, to supply the
20 average government worker with Ehe tools that. he
2T or she needs to do t,heir j ob ef f ectively.
22 The taxpayers of Pennsylvania should
23 notr pay a premium to supply those workers with
24 the basic tools to do their jobs.
25 Clear 1et me just give you an ?0
L example. This pack of Post-It notes right now
2 that under existing contract to supply office
J suppl-ies we pay $2.2 8. Under the new contract we . 4 will pay 55 cents. That's $1.73 less every time
5 a government worker buys a pack of 12 Post-It
6 not.es.
7 I find no justification to pay two
I threnty-eight f or this pack of Post - It notes if I
9 can get it at 55 cent.s and have 3 0 percent of
10 that supply contract go to smal1 business in the
11 f orm of minor j-ty and women-owned businesses. t2 The same with this Pack of binder
13 cIips. We now pay 84 cents for this pack of
T4 binder c1ips. We can pay 15 cents, for a 69-cent
L5 savings.
16 That money that is not being sPent t7 to supply the tooLs that the government worker
L8 needs, or as I would say that money that's not
19. being wasted of the taxpayersr dollars to provj-de
20 those supplies, will be and can be placed into
2t the other operations of government that matter ( 22 for Pennsylvanians, whether thatts education,
23 economic development, tax reform, whatever the
24 policy agendas are of the Governor and of the
25 GeneraL Assembly. Those dol lars shoul-d go to 7t
L things that, affect real-life Pennsylvanians.
2 In an attempt to be brief , f '11
3 conclude with kind of a second bigger-picture
4 theme that you mentioned in your opening
5 statement, which is, we11, what impact will this
6 have on small businesses, which requires a littIe
7 bit of background in how we buy right now.'
B We buy based on low bid, low
.9 responsible bid. on our service and commodity
10 contract s .
1L That in no way assures anywhere
12 where a business is located or the size of that
13 business. example, currently when we ,"or t4 purchase of f ice suppl ies last year we .bought
15 of f ice suppl j-es at about 2,70 0 outlets, not a1I
16 in Pennsylvania, j ust 2 ,'7 OO outLets . t7 Many of those purchases were at l-8 retail price, which is inexcusable in my
19 viewpoint. With the amount of money we spend we
20 should not be paying retail prices.
2l But about 1800 of those rrurchases
22 were done at businesses where we spent less than
23 a thousand do11ars.
24 So to get to your question
25 because we share your concern and f commend you -
72
1 for being i"!erested in the effect that any of
2 state operaLions will have on the business
3 community we looked at how many businesses do
4 more than a hundred thousand dollars worth of
5 office supply work wiEh the Commonwealth.
6
7 more than a hundred thousand. dollars worth of
8 wo rk
9 Six then we looked at how manY. of
10 these businesses are based in Pennsylvania. Six
11 of those businesses were based in Pennsylvania. t2 Now thatrs six businesses. ThaE,ts six
13 signif icant businesses. It may or may no! 'be
L4 able to compete on a price leve1 for a contract
15 going forwatdl but. just to bring some perspect'ive
15 to the impact. And the final point I will make
L7 is that we are applying t,he aggregate, kind of
18 syst.em-wid.e buying of commodities to about 2O
19 area s, 20 contracts that the staL,e does in 200.4.
20 ,Just to bring some PersPective to
21 that, the state has about, 257 standing contracLs
22 for the purchases of commodities and supplies.
23 Much to the contrary of some of the , 24 information thatts put out, werre not doing
25 contract bundling. Contract bundling is 73
l- basically department store buying, where you take
2 office supplies, food, any other commodity and go
3 to one'supplier Lo supply all of that.
4 We are not changing the number of
5 contracts. We will sti11 have 257 contracts for
o commodities and services
7 But in that silo.of that commoditY
I and service, in 2o of those we will say instead'
9 of DEP buying a litt1e bit here and PennDOT
L0 buying a 1ittle bit there. we ought to go out to
1-1 the marketplace with what the Commonwealth buys t2 and simply say to the vendor community, we are
13 going to buy 75,000 computers over the course of l4 this contract. Give us your best, unit price on t5 those computers.
L6 Obviously if you ask. for unit price t7 based on aggregaLed volume you are going to get
LB better pricing. That's how we get to paying a
19 different amount for this than we did before.
20 It is simply a system that is
2l employed by every smart business and', quit'e
2.2 frankly, every smart consumer ac"ross
23 Pennsylvania
24 EverY consumer knows if theY need a
25 larger amount of commodit,y for something if 74
L you're having a picnic, you got 5O people coming o z over, yourre going to get a cheaper price per
3 ounce of ketchup if you buy the 96-ounce bottle
+ and instead of going to 7 -L1- and buying 14
5 four-ounce bottles.
6 Werre trying to be smart about how
7 we spend taxpayersr dollars. And in conclusion,
B I will say that every do11ar that we donrt spend
9 supplying a government worker to do his or her
L0 job can be. spent or utilized for helping
1l- Pennsylvanians in the greater budget.
L2 CHAIRMAN ARGALL: My mother is a
L3 hundred percent frugal Pennsylvania Dutch, so Irm
t4 all in favor of cheap ketchup. My kids would
L5 make sure of that. I just want to make sure that
16 the overall statewide picture makes sense.
t7 And in that hund.red. million doLlar
18 goal, does that include potential losses to
19 Pennsylvania employers? I mean, has that been
20 factored into this analysis?
2L SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: We11, let me
22 say this: The hundred million dollars
23 CHAIRMAN ARGAI-rI-r: I was hoping f or a
24 yes or no.
25 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: Will SOMC 75
individual businesses be affected in changing the o z rebidding of suppliers? Yes. Yes. But r aLso
3 don't feel that we have
i4 CHAIRMAN ARGALL: Is that included : in the hundred million dollar number, those
6 potential losses?
7 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: What kind. of
8 losses do you mean? : 9 CHAIRMAN ARGALL: Unemployment, less
l_0 taxes that theyrll be paying to the Department of
1L Revenue.
l2 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: This is
L3 this the impact on sma1l business in the
l4 . process of us buying smarter is extremely
l_5 minimal, is extremely minimal.
15 CHAIRMAN ARGALI-r: We can certainly
l7 hope that that's the case. And that's probably a
18 point that we ought to pursue in the rather
L9 boring number crunching exercise that is the role
20 of this committee.
2t How about costr Eo any ot,her state
22 agencies as a resuLt of this initiative?
23 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: I rm not
24 can you just Irm not sure exactly what you
25 mean. 76
L CHAIRMAN ARGALL: Had Labor and
2 Industry given you any numbers that says that,
3 we11, w€ think, you know, urremployment may tick
4 up by a tenth of a percent or
5 SEICRETARY CUNNINGHAM: No,
6 unemploymentts not going to tick up. You have
7 to we have to understand that the
B Commonwealth although it's a Lot of money for
9 us, $3.1 billion a year in supplies and
10 commodities, even the total $3.1 billion a year,
LL the government purchasing makes up less than l-
t2 percent of the state's gross product.
13 We are applying this to billion, - $r. 14 so this makes up probably less than one-half
15 percent of the statets gross product.
L5 AIso, let me go back to the office
I7 example. There is nothing, nothing at all
1B embedd.ed in the current system that assures
19 business -: government contracting business going
20 to either A, small business; or B,
2L Pennsylvania-based business .
22 Let's at least have a factual
23 understanding of where we are today and then go
24 forward. 'out 25 . The new sys t em that we I ve put -
77
1 moving towards, which is Act 57, which is a very : o 2 progressive procurement reform structure put in
3 place by the last administration which al1ows us
4 to do this, under this plan of going out for
5 proposals we are.asking for more than just price
6 Itrs a misnomer to say this is all about price.
7 Werre asking for three things. This is a
I critical piece of information.
9 We are asking for anYbody who bids,
t_0 and, everybody's open to bid., to te11 us how
11 theyrre going to serve this contract, so we
l2 assure that we have the right leveI oi service,
13 which translates.to te11 us'the number of
L4 employees and the business infrastructure .that's
15 going to be utilized to serve that contract,
r-6 wnr- cn al r ows us to r:gotiate around those
17 those terms.
18 secondly, iL t,e11s the anYbodY
19 that's putting in a proposal, show us what part
20 of your supply chain, what part of your contract
2L will utilize certified. min.ority and women-owned
22 businesses.
23 And just a littIe bit of facts on
24 that, every certified minority and women-owned
25 business is a sma11 business by statute. 78
:a1 Assembly, the statute,
2 requires to be certified you have to be under a
3 hundred employees, you are smal1 business. 85
4 percent of the certified minority and women-owned
5 businesses in Pennsylvania that we have certified
6 are Pennsylvania based.
7 So only 15 percent of our certified
U MWBE's are outside of Pennsylvania. These
9 contracts assure a small business component. The
L0 last system of buying assured nothing.
11 CHA I RMAN ARGAI-,I-T: In regard to t2 businesses that will be hurt, has there been any
13 discussion to you know, I guess werre going to t4 hear from DCED tomorrow with the whole new series
L5 of initiat j-ves to promoEe economic development.
15 Was there any discussion to do something in that
17 package t,o help anyone who might be'hurt j.n this
L8 one ?
19 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: Wel1, we had
20 extensive discussion, myself with Secre E,ary
2t Yablonsky of DCED, abouL our purchasing change s
22 our purchasing reforms. He was involved the
23 whole way through.
24 Again, 1et me reiterate what I sa id
25 earl i er We do not see a negative aggregate 79
l_ impact on sma11 business in Pennsylvania based on
us changing the way we buy SL billion in
3 commodities of services.
'4 In fact, w€ could end up, because of
5 the required .MWBE component, a larger number of
-6 our contract dollars going to sma11 businesses in
7 Pennsylvania under this under this system.
B : That said, I want to be very frank
9 and t want to be very honest. Werre going out to
10 the marketplace and we are challenging people to
LL give us good prices. t2 There cou1d. be a supplier out there
13 now that wontt be a supplier of the Commonwealth l4 tomorrow. But we are not going to just continue
L5 with existing suppl-iers if we can get better
L5 value on our conLracts for taxpayers. t7 CHAIRMAN ARGALL: I-.,et me j ust head
1B down two. other paths very quickly. l_9 I think it took me six years, but we
20 passed the Downtown Location Act in 2000. I
2t guess Ehe first report is due later this year by
22 your Department. There was a four-year window in
23 that.
24 I notice that the executive order
25 just came out. Does this make any meaningful 80
1 changes in how the state locates its businesses o 2 than you would have seen in the Past? \ SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: First of al-1,
4 let me commend you on your work in this area. I
5 think itrs been groundbreaking. And I know as a
6 fo.rmer Mayor of Bethlehem and former president of
7 the Pennsylvania League of Cities that you're a
B big proponent of using Commonwealth dollars and
9 employees in the form of leases and owned
10 build.ings to help revitalize downtown and
11 communities where werre trying to drive economic
L2 growth and revital i zat ion.
1_3 The Governor shares that commitment
14 completely. The executive order that the
15 Governor asked issued last week on real
15 estate, which has a downtown component section in
t7 it, directs the Department of General Services,
L8 as the real estate broker, agent for the
19 CommonwealLh, to control where we place our
20 leases and where we place our buildings that we
2t own with an emphasis on we ought to put
22 Commonwealth dollars and employees to work with
23 cities and communities that are trying to
24 revi tal i ze .
25 In specific, w€ have several rea11y B1
1 exciting initiatives going on,. one in Allentown,
2 one in Wilkes-Barre
3 We are actually talking about not
+ Commonwealth leas€d, but Commonwealth owned
5 moving outsj-d.e of the outer rim of the city and
6 taking upwards of hundreds of employees and
7 investmenL in buildings and putting it into
B downtowns.
9 We have also started looking at
10 consolid.ating leases to, A, save money, because
11 rve got 1400 leases out there that are costing t2 us about a $ 15 0 mi l1ion a year,' but B,
13 consolidate into downtowns working with DCED. We t4 now work we are beginning to meet regularly t_5 with Team PA, with the Department of. Economic
15 Development, t.o coordinate leasing with economic l7 revitali zation.
1B CHAIRMAN ARGALL: But does the l_9 executive order do anything thac you werenrt
20 already required to do under the terms of the
2t Act?
22 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: WeLl, what an
23 executive order does is it sends message directly
24 to all. the departments under the Governorrs
25 jurisd.iction, under the Governorts control, to 82
1 f ollow Ehat, directive.
2 Executive order is a tool that we
J use internally within the executive branch to try
.t to make sure that everybod.y's f unctioning under
5 the Governorrs policy, policy orders.
6 . As you know, Lhe Act says that it
7 doesntt mandate downtown leasing. It says
6 CHAIRMAN ARGALL: Had to give uP
9 that part
L0 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: Right. rt
LL says we ought to. So this reinforces your Act to l2 say the Governor agrees and this is what we wou1d
L3 doing when when it is possible
T4 CHAIRMAN ARGAI-,L: I ' 1l- be very
15 interested in seeing the report later this year
16 to see what kind of progress we.rve made on that t7 front.
1B The other one, just very quickly,
19 your department and I have been.trying to come up
20 with a solution that makes sense for the
2t taxpayers,, the st,udents at Kutztown University,
22 and if, indeed, they can continue to use a
23 Pennsylvanla fuel rather than a Saudi Arabian
24 fuel. We thought that would be a good idea as
25 weLl-. B3
Are we getting any closer to a final
2 solution on the Kutztown boiler plant issue?
SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: We are. In 3 "- request the 4 f act, &t your request and at the .of
5 Anthracite Coal Council the Administration went
6 back to reevaluate and fine-tooth.comb the
7 previous administrationrs analysis on fuel choice
U for Kutztown, which is currentlYr ds you know,
9 anthracite boiler facility in the middle of
10 campus.
Ll_ The University wants to, verY
L2 understandably, modernize and move that boj-1er
13 out of Lhe middl e of campus t,o the edge of
14 camDus.
15 And the anaLYsis is being done on
16 what are the up- f ront capital cost's and the t7 operating costs on fuel choice. And in this case
1B it's natural gas or anthracite coal. l_9 We hired a verY toP-notch national
20 expert on fuel choice that works for most of our
21 large utilities across Pennsylvania to give us a
22 final anaLysis on that. We look forward to
23 having that completed by the end of this month,
24 beginning of April.
25 CHAIRMAN ARGALL: Okay. I t.hink I B4
may have told you that plant might not have. been
2 there when my grandfather graduated from Kutztown
3 NormaI School in Lg28, but it was already serving '5'7 4 the college well when dad graduated in .
5 Representative Evans.
6 REPRESENTATIVE EVANS: Thank You,
7 Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon
U Mr. Secretary.
9 After that dialogue and exchange, as
L0 usuaI, you did an excellent job. You, in my t_L view,' gleared the air for what I think was a lot
T2 of misinformation and a 1ot of people saying'make
13 a distinction between bundling in terms of smart
L+ buying and using the props that you did. I
15 thought that was more than appropriate; and' al-so
16 quoting the fact that we as the General Assembly
1"7 passed. Act 57 in Igg7, and. obviously you canrt do l_8 anything with the power t,hat we give you outside l_9 the executive order of working with the Governor.
20 f also like the fact that Your
2t strategic thinking around minorities and women
22 and the aspect about Pennsylvania.
23 I like the fact that yourre using
24 t,hat strategically as well as what f just heard
25 you say to the Chairman relating to the aspect L around the Brookings Report. You use the general
z service from a strategic investmenL. I mean,, my
3 experience has been that's the kind of thinking I
4 think that we need around here that wetve been
5 lacking for a long, long time, thaL all
6 departments should coordinate coordj-nate all
7 procurement, coordinat,e all investment. We could
B do a lot more ourselves as a Commonwealth of
9 Pennsylvania rather than depending on others.
L0 And I think thatrs the kind. of smart investment
11 we need. t2 So in listening to your
13 conversation, from my standpoint, I am satisfied
14 with the questions that you asked of the chair
15 the chairman asked You, very good questions. r-6 I want to be cIear, You 90 on the l7 record, that I think that this aspect of
L8 strategic buying or strategic sources should' be a
19 part of the overall strategy. And I think yourre
t 20 correct when you talked about those other
2t policies, because we do need some money for
22 . education and economic development. We cannot
23 . just all the time talk about raising peoplets
24 Eaxes.
25 In spite of the fact that PeoPle B6
l_ like to think that only democrats like to talk
2 about raising taxes, the reality of it is, you
3 know, tthe fact that I -- again, I keep always
4 teJ-ling people how long Irve been around here,
5 and I recaIl I recal1 Schweiker and I recaLl
6 Rid.ge and. I recall Thornburgh and they also
7 raised .taxes .
tJ So I always like to put that and.
usual ly I ,don' t l ike to get into that battle .
10 Because I hear this kind of thing, you know, only
L1_ Rende11, only democrats Like to talk about
1-2 raising taxes. flve been here long enough to
13 know that Irve seen three republican governors,
14 and they all raised taxes. You dj-dn't talk about
15 fees , you didn't talk about any of those things
15 that you want to taLk about. ' J"7 Not one of them, not one of them t_B since they were here did not come here talking
19 about rai sing somebodyt s fees or somebodyt s . 20 traxes.
2t That's not what I want to talk
22 about. Because I donrt think it should be
23 democrat or republican. I mean, we have our
24 1ittle fight this election year and when that's
25 over we should be talking about the governing for B7
12 million people. That's what they should. be
2 talking about.
3 We shouldnrt be trYing to .do
4 one-upsmanship, in my view. You knowr .
5 Mr. Rendell want to t,ake more money out of some
6 people t s pockets, somebody e1 se. It wasnrt that
7 long ago Governor Schweiker talked about tipping
Now people want to .B fees. . He did the same thing. 9 act like they got a short memory.
1o But I think that your thinking
1L your thinking is, in my view, a redesigned of ,way t2 how to us_e government. Itts a redesign of how to t_3 use go.vernment. It I s a dif f erent way. And
14 yourre being very efficient in a way. You should
15 be applauded. You and the Governor should be
1_6 applauded. . We should do more of that. We should t7 d.o that within the General Assembly. l_8 we collectively should figure out in l_9 the' General Assembly how are we doing our
20 purchasing, where are we doing our purchasing
2l f rom. So we should look at it f rom tha.t. " 22 standpoint. Because it's not our money. This is
23 not our money. Make that very c1ear. It doesnrt .us 24 belong to . I t belongs to the taxpayers of
25 this state. L So r can only add that. And usuallY o 2 I d.on't get 3 tit for tat with members who make statements
.+ about fees for taxes. You know, 1routve been ' 5 around .here l ong enough. You know, ' that s f or
6 the cameras. And at the end of the day the only
7 thing people care about is is this working.
8 But I rm very impressed with
9 listening to you and the testimony you have
10 given. And I think you have given real good
l_ 1_ justif icat j,on.f or why this policy should
I2 continue. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 'Thank 13 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: You
t4 very much, Mr. Representative.
t5 CHAIRMAN ARGALL: RePresentative
16 Barrar.
t7 REPRESENTATM BARRAR: Thank You,
1B Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, in your statement
19 you said about 27oO companies were doing office
20 supply business, and only LB0O did a thousand'
2a dollars worth of business with the Commonwealth-
22 There were 9OO businesses there that were doing
23 the rest. How much was the average purchase, how
24 much business was being done with these 9OO. o it's a 25 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: WhiLe 89
very fair question, herets part of the challenge o 2 that werve gone through in terms of data. 3 If you would have asked me last
4 year, Mr. Secretary, how much did we spend on
5 office supplies and where did we spend. it? I
o wouldn'.t have been abLe to give you an answer at
7 all.
8 That information has resided in five
9 or six different financial systems, computer
L0 systems{ a lot of it in hard coPY, requisitions,
L1 purchase orders. We spent the better part of
L2 last year just trying to mine down into the
13 inf ormaL ion of every agency to und.erstand what we
L4 buy and how we buy it.
15 I think your questionrs a very
L6 Iegitimate one.
L7 REPRESENTATfVE BARRAR: It's an
18 important piece of this p:uzzle.
19 SECRETARY CUNNTNGHAM And let me
20 say this: That therers a program that sLarted
2t under the last administration which has been much
22 maligned., which is our investment into SAP and
z5 system-wide computerization. Commonwealth had
24 invested hundreds of millions of dollars into
25 that Let me say, I will te11 you that in the 90
L area of procurement that was a very wise
2 investme
3 For the first time going forward we
4 will actually have all of our agencies entering
5 procurement module data into a centralized
6 system, where next year you ask me that question
7 Ir11 be able Lo push a button, generate a report.
I IILI be able to te11 you, which is Lhe basic
9 tools of any any successful business is
10 knowing what you spend and how you spend it'.
1L REPRESENTATM BARRAR': But yourre t2 paying a consultant $6 million to do this. r_3 mean,' I think he would have had somebody
L4 should have had that answer before - - before we
L5 went out with this strategy. I mean, there's 9OO
16 businesses out there. We don't know what this t7 contract means to them. And now the contract was
LB given to how many businesses?
1_9 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: We11, the
20 contract has not been a\tarded. The contract
2L REPRESENTATIVE BARRAR: But it will
22 go to technically how many businesses, when it's
23 awarded, will it go to?
24 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: It will most
25 likely go to one or two primary suppliers. L REPRESENTATM BARRAR: So about 892
2 other businesses will be without that piece of
3 the pie.
4 S.ECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: Let me j ust
5 clarify one point. Understand when we'taIk about
6 27 OO businesses, what t,hat means is any business,
7 any Commonweal-th employee that took a card and .B bought a pack of Post-It notes across the street
9 will show up on a rec. Thatrs not that the
10 Commonwealth had contracts with 2700 businesses.
1l_ Those are just outlets at which something was
1,2 purchased.
13 REPRESENTATIVE BARRAR: But these r1 are the' businesses that are doing more than a
L5 t hou s and dolLars in business, the 900 I'm talking
16 about. The lBOO f agree with you, there's t7 probably nobody's going to lose a job over it. l_B Theytre probably not going to feel the impact.
19 But how much was being done by the 9OO werre
20 talking about that currently do the bulk of the
2t bus ine s s in that office supply contract?
22 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: We11, to try
23 to bring this to some conclusion, I will I
24 will mine down and get you the businesses that
25 did between a thousand and L00;000. We will mine 92
1 down. Understand when you made the comment about
2 the consultant that's been helping us on this,
that consultant has actually allowed. us to
&I understand what we bry, how we buy it. And that
5 has come at no cost to the taxpayers, because
"5 they are being paid by what we are saving.
.7 REPRESENTATf VE BARRAR.: Let me go
B to the Governor is proposing raising quite a
g few business taxes, I think about around $120
10 million in new business fees
LL What do we say to our small
I2 businesses now that'are going to be asked last
L3 year we asked them to contribute a 1itt1e bit t4 more of their income and this year we,re asking
15 them to pay toxic emission fees and trash tipping
16 fees and everything else on top of that.i
I.7 The impact, I think a 1ot of
1B businesses look back and sdy, you know, we can
L9 probably absorb this because we are doing
20 business with the state.
2t Werre.also looking t'o borrow $Z
22 billion to attract new small businesses, most of
23 them are sma11 businesses, that come into the
24 state. Werre looking at borrowing g2 billion to
25 attract business here. At, the same time werre 93
L going Uo slam the door on them and sdy, you know,
.z we'want you to do business in Pennsylvania but
3 not with the state.
4 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: We11,
5 think, first of all, thatts an attractive story
6 if it were accurate. You first have to
7 understand where we buy right now. You are
8 making the assumption in essence of saying
9 everything we buy right now is being bought from
10 a sma11 Pennsylvania business l-1 I-ret me take an example ot,her than
L2 office supplies, p€rsonal computers. Currently
13 th-e way the state buys IT hardware whether it
T4 . be laptops, PC's, p€ripherals, or printers is
L5 in one big contract for all PC hard for all
16 computer hardware. The reality is you got four t7 enLit.ies that supply the Commonwealth. They
1B supply everybody De11, IBM, Gateway, HP,
19 riahf?
20 We have actually debundled this and
2L said we are goj-ng to buy not in one big lump but
22 welre going to buy have separate contract for
23 peripherals, separate contract for servers, and a
24 separate contract for PCrs and go out to the
25 marketplace and 1et those any entity compete 94
to give us that best price.
2 It is truer w€ may end up with one
3 .supplier of PC equipment; however, the three.
4 entities that will no lonqer hold a conuract with
5 the Commonwealth are three multi-national large
6 Fortune 100 companies. We cannot make the
7 assumpEj-on because the supply change has changed
I that somehow that has meant that the losers on
9 that are smaLl Pennsylvania businesses.
10 In fact, ds I said earlier, every
11 one of these source contracts ensures that there t2 will be a sma1l business component in it. The
L3 other ones did not. t4 REPRESENTATIVE BARRAR : Thank you,
15 Mr. Chairman.
16 CHAI RMAN ARGAI,L : Repre s ent at ive t7 Frankel.
18 RE PRES ENTAT I VE FRANKEI, : Thank you,
L9 Mr. Chairman. WeIcome, Mr. Secretary. I want to . 20 also . congratulate you in terms of the progre s s
2t yout re making
22 r have been in the legislature only
23 for five years and prior to that had been a
24 businessman, since late 1970s. And I can te11
25 you that the environment that I went through in 95
L business changed dramaticafly, as Irm sure you
2 know, in the last 25 years at requiring people
3 that, .you know, one t j-me in my bus j-ness you could
4 rely on relationships with people who were
5 purchasing my services.
6 But that changed very dramatically
7 and itts become a very competitive environment.
B And that competitive environment
9 made my business a better business. It was
t_0 painful, but I knew that at the end of the day I
1l_ had to be able to be more productive, provid.e
J_2 l-ess expensive but better service at the same
13 time
I4 And I think you're responding in a
l_5 very similar way as a purchaser, someone that's
L6 requiring that marketplace to respond the way we
1,7 in the business community have always insisted,
L8 and. particularly in the last, f soy, 2O years
19 have made folks that supply us and we do business
20 with beEter business people.
2L So I want to congratulate your
22 efforts. I think they certainly are progressive
23 j-n making us a leader operation. And I think the
24 business community needs to respond. Clearly one
25 of the issues here i-s the fact that the more L suppliers there s a political element to Lhat '2 quite c1early. We all know that. And that
3 becomes painful in some cases for E,hose of us in
4 elective office.
5 But Lhat's life. And we canrt
6 afford to make those decisions on a polit.ical
7 basis. We need to be competit ive'. And you're
8 doing that. And youtre to be congratuLated for
9 ir.
L0 One of the other efforts I know that
1l_ yourre that you've been involved in has been
t2 an effort to help municipalities across the
L3 state. Clear1y it is, I think you know, the City
L.4 of Pittsburgh is going through a very, very.
15 painful time and wetre talking about all kinds of
1.6 different changes in the way the City of
1? Pittsburgh does business, Allegheny County does r_B business. We're talking about co.mbining;
19 consolidating certain services.
20 And I know that you have been to
2t Pittsburgh and Allegheny County, as well as I
22 assume other cities and^ munj-cipalities, to Iook
23 at being able to bring the economy to scale that
24 the state has in Lerms of purchasing and provide
25 that leverage to the City of pittsburgh and -L Allegheny County.
z A, howrs that going? Are you being
3 well received? Because Irm sure thatrs also
.4 sometimes a difficult message to get across
5 beca yourre potenLially breaking relationships
6 at a local Level. : 7 Is that someEhing that has been welI
B received. and are we making some progress there?
9 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: Thank you,
10 Representative Frankel. One of the things the
l_L Governor is most committed to about our
72 initiative in purchasing is allowing locaI
13 governments, counties, and school districts to
l4 voLuntarily, if they so desire, to take advantage
15 of the statels purchasing contracts, which is l_6 nothing new c1ear1y. Piggyback purchasing has
1,7 existed under state procurement code for many
1B years. When f was Mayor of Bethlehem f took r.9 advantage of it where we could find place where
20 the state contract allowed us to get a better
2L price po j.nt.
22 Quite frankly, what we found is that
23 most of our counties out t,here and a lot of our
24 cities are doing a much better job of purchasing
25 than the Commonwealth was. We had county governments, and David
2 Yarkin and I, the deputy for procurement, went
3 and visited with public purchasing agents early
+ on last year. And we asked, them what they
5 thought about piggyback purchasing. They said
6 it's a greatIt concept. We use th .e state to
'7 benchmark prici.g, then we go ouF and get
B better price rhich quite honestly j-1ure I is a f a 9 in my view. If the state government's getting
10 worse pricing than countiesr w€rre not doing our
t_1 j obs .
t2 So what will be the case is that for
13 all of you with your locaI school districts, your
l_4 municipal governments, many of your nonprofits,
15 you wilL be able to te11 them please check the
16 DGS website for the st,ate contract on any
1,7 commodity or any service youfre buying, and with
l_8 no investment in up-front personnel or anything
19 other than web-based application of technology,
20 they will be able to buy off our contract and
2L realize the same savings. They will buy the
22 Post-It notes for 55 cents, voluntarily.
23 If they do not, wish to buy off state
24 contract and they want to buy from the local
25 vendor across the street, they can do that. If 99
l_ it matters to them if they have certified
z minority and women-owned businesses in the chain
3 of their purchasing, they also will know that 3O
+ percent of Eheir purchase price will be going to
5 smal1 business, most like1y in pennsylvania.
6 The City of Pittsburgh is very
7 interested, obviously, I think a 1ot of our
I cities that are struggling through difficult
9 financiaL times, the County of Allegheny, a lot
10 of our larger areas. And we wilL continue to
1_1 work wit,h them. And to, in conclusion, it,s been
72 very well -- very welL rece'ived by the municipal
l_3 governments and the school districts out across
14 the state.
15 REPRESENTATM FRANKEL: Thank you,
16 Mr. Secretary.
77 CHAIRMAN ARGALL: Representative
1B Mahe r .
19 REPRESENTATIVE MAHER: Thank you,
20 Mr. Chairman. Itd like to return to a couple of
2L t.he f or instances we brought up with the post - It
22 notes. And you've referred to the case under the
23 status quo someone might pop across the street,
24 pick up a pack of retail and pay whatever the
25 going rate is. r.00
l_ So when you measure the acquisition
2 price of Post-It notes, if therers a known what
it was paid across the street at the retailer
I versus what's.under the procurement contr.act with
5 the single vendor or the two vendors that would
serve all over the sLate, you can see this
7 surface value of the price. But the cost of
B acquisiuion in the supply chain, of course, isn't
9 just what does the item cost.
L0 Therers also the aspect of how does
11 the item get from where iL is to where it's going t t2 to be used.
13 Now,r\lar.r ini - a case with the person
14 popping across the street, letrs say letrs say
15 I wenE on Line, p€rsonal, boiled down to common , L6 sense. And the Post-ft notes, perhdps, are 5 t7 bucks for a stack that big at the locaI store. l_B I go online, I can find them for'2
L9 bucks. rf r order a stack of those post-rt notes
20 for $2, pay $4 for shipping and Irm down a buck.
21 How do you handl e .the shipping
22 aspect?
23 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: It's a very
24 good question. And the issue of service and
25 delivery is as important as is price. 101
1 : And this is reaIly the beauty of us
2 going out to the marketplace with the fullness of
3 our buying.
4 We put our proposal on the. street.
5 We are requiring anybod.y who had bid on the
6 office supply contract within 9O percent accuracy
7 to have 24-hour to 4B-hour deliveiy to that
B government outlet.
9 REPRESENTATTVE MAHER: At no charge.
L0 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: At no cha rge
L1 with them taking on the cost of supplying.
T2 To understand the savings go beyond
13 the $10 miIIion, if you know how we d.o it now, it
14 is the most archaic and inefficient system you
15 could ever have.
L5 REPRESENTATM MAHER: T certainly
I7 applaud the progress in this area. Irm just
LB trying to make sure I f u11y und.erstand it.
19 Thanks for that explanation. When we have
20 500-some-odd school dj-stricts, 501 that. can
2L piggyback, 2500 municipalities, hundreds and
22 hund.reds of authorj-ties that can piggyback on
23 state contracts, currently that presents a. range
24 of opt,ions and a variety of school districts who
25 bought a variety of furniture, variety of t02
L equipment,. vari.ety of whatever.
2 Now, if we go to one vendor or two
3 vendors, the benefits of piggybacking to the
+ extent that people, the school d.istricts wa'nt to
5 cont j-nue to make sure that they're matching
6 furn,iture or chairs or panels or whatever,
7 cabling, that it all fits together, the number of
B optS.ons would seem to be reduced. And so there
9 may be some incentive for these school districts
10 who migh.t have been piggybacking to no longer
11 piggyback it with a single vendor. t2
13
1a quick points there. Itrs been a misnomer that r-5 every contract we source is going to go to one
16 single vendor. ' t7 You take your example of office
L8 REPRESENTATIVE MAHER: I believe it
1_9 .just said one or two.
20 SECRETARY CUNNfNGHAM: LeErs take
2T your example of office furniture. The way the
22 of f ice f urnj-ture vendor works, there's f ive or
2.3 six major manufacturers, a 1ot like automobiles,
24 and then they have regional distributors that
25 they distribute through. 103
So in the case of office furniture
2 we would st,i11 carry on state contractco the five
or six multiple vendor manufacturers that
.* produce it, so.
5 REPRESENTATIVE MAHER: So you have
6 the designated state vendor but also have other
7 contracts out there where people can piggyback?
B SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: We will
9 ha.ve
10 REPRESENTATIVE MAHER The state
11 wonrt actually be acquiring it.
L2 SECRETARY CUNNTNGHAM: In a lot of
13 cases there will be multi-award contracts.
L4 Also, the school district obviously
L5 isn't required to buy off state contract. ff
16 they l-ook at i t and they want to buy off it they
L7 can.
1B If they want to continue an existing
L9 relationship with a supplier, they can also do
20 that. Some of our dialogue with.the vendor
2t community has been in some of these commod.ity 'buy. 22 areas where. we I re aggregat ing' our. They' re
23 better served to try to se11 directly to smaller
24 buyers like school districts.
25 REPRESENTATIVE MAHER: Let me move t_04
on to a different aspect of this, also in the
2 piggybacking. But, Eo the extent when you visited
3 our caucus meetirg, you spoke about DGS having a
4 desire to actually'go forward and market better
5 piggybacking to local government units and to the
o nonprofit units, to the charitable organizations.
7 . At that time I raised a concern that
I f ' 11 reiterate for you today, and see how your
9 thought has evolved.
10 While Irm alL for government being
Ll_ as efficient as possible, I am also wary of
l2 government actually going out and competing with
13 and against the real world. And insofar as the
L4 nonprofit community is in business and acquiring
15 this and acquiring that, to the extent that
L6 taxpayers will be subsidizing the operation of
T7 DGS and that DGS will put people on its payroll
18 to actually go out and market buying through DGS
1_9 you're actually putting yourself in a position \ v0 where DGS is going to be competing against the
2t loca1 vendors to to use t,he advantages of
22 government to interfere with the free market.
23 And. that is a matter of great concern.
SECRETARY CUNNfNGHAM: Two real
25 qu'ick points. We will have one or two people 10s
1 working on the program. As you pointed out, you
2 got 5OO school d.istricts, 25OO municipalities.
3 Yes, , lars will make the program known, but therers
4 only so far you can go with a couple of people.
5 And secondly, the real the real
o issue here is we a1low for the local taxpayers to
7 save. money too. And they realIy save money twice
B if they save
9 REPRESENTATM MAHER: I1m not
1_0 disagreeing with helping the 1oca1s. What I am
Ll_ suggesting is once you go beyond the scope of
t2 government and actively market to oth.ers, yourre I' l_3 using the weight and the power of the state t4 government to compete against the existing free
l_5 market, such as when you're going to be trying to
I 16 market this to charitable organizations out
L7 t,here.
L8 And while I cert-ainIy think it's
L9 good for charitable organization, they need to be
20 very careful about government getting into
2t business and peddling office supplies, p€ddling
22 furniture in competition with the free market.
23 CHAf RMAN ARGALL: Represent,ative
24 Wheatley.
25 REPRESENTATIVE WHEATLEY: ThANK YOU, 106
L Mr. Chairman. Good mornirg, Mr. Secretary.
2 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: Good mornirg,
3 Representative.
REPRESENTATIVE WHEATI,EY: I JUST
5 wanted to say I'm completely surprised this
5 mornirg, because I've been saying since I've been
7 here that government shouldn't just be about
I looking aL numbers and being about the bottom
9 line. And..I finally. -- I think Itm hearing my
l-0 coLLeagues on the other side of the aisle sayj-ng
11 the same thing. Herers a program yourre offering
t2 that will save taxpayers' money. And. Irm hearing
13 this morning that maybe that,!s not the most
t4 important element to this whole conversation,
L5 that numbers sometimes take a back seat to
r_6 people:
T7 And in saying that, youtve been
18 saying a number that Irm very interested in.
19 Yourve mentioned 30 percent, guaranteeing your
20 new structure will ensure 3O percent going to
2L women and minority-owned business or sma11
22 businesses.
23 And my quesbion then becomes your
24 operation is also taking or the Governorrs
25 requesting decreases in some elements of your 107
budget. 1l I ,. .:,
2 How much of that decrease wiLl
3 affect the actual monitoring of compliance to
4 that 3 0 percent? How do you guarantee that 30
5 percent
6 ECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: We11, let me
7 make'one clarification. On the 3O percent, what
I I said is in this specific area of the recent
9 bids on office supplies, w€ have several tl* bids
t-0 Lhat would assure 3O percent in the'office supply
L1 contract. I just donrt want to leave everybody
t2 thinking right now werre at the successful leveI
l_3 of 3O percent of all state spending.
l4 We have said, as you know, in 2002.
1-5 only Less than 2 percent of total state
L6 spending went to certified minority and
l7 women-owned businesses .
18 We are working aggressively -- Peter
l_9 Speaks, our deputy for administration, myself
20 to get to a point where werre at about 1O percent
2u. at least every year, which is sti1l a.doubling,
22 tripling, guadrupling of the amount of state
23 spending going Lo smal- I business in the f orm of t 24 minority -and women owned. 25 To that end, and to get to your L0B
L question, w€ have enhanced. and upgrad.ed . staf f in
2 the Office of Minority and Women-Owned gusiness
3 Opportunity with a focus on ensuring contract
+ compl iance . .
5 And also having employees that are
6 part of the minority and women-owned office
7 actually residing and existing within the
procurement work group and within the public '8 9 works contracting work group where decisions are t-0 being made, make an effort to 1ink. up vendors,
11 suppliers, with contractor, with the people t2 r.3 REPRESENTATIVE WHEATLEY: So just so l4 I get it clear on what you just stated, you t_5 are - - you are enhancing that department, which .
L6 means youtre increasing personnel over there. l7 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: YCS.
18 REPRESENTATIVE WHEATLEY: And ins.ide r.9 this contracting process, you have mechanisms to
20 ensu ompliance even after you issue a
2t contracL ?
22 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: Yes. One of
23 the things that and Peter, when he was with
24 Audiuor General Bobby Casey.actually 1ed. some of
25 the Auditor Generalrs audits of the staters L09
1 minority women-owned init,iative run out of DGS.
One of the failings, one of the
3 points that was shown was that there was a lack
+ of enforcement, a lack of fol1ow-up on contract
5 terms. So that's been an important piece of our
6 reform effort.
7 REPRESENTATIVE WHEATI.EY: SO I
B would - - I would love to be '\epU in the 1oop,
'9 maybe if you can share with us some of the Lhings
10 that yourre doing that will show an improvement
11 than the prior administration.
L2 I have ihree final questions that I
13 want to giy" to you, and if you canrt get to them
l4 all I rea11y appreciate some submission to this
L5 committee.
16 One, last year the Pennsylvania
l7 Legislative Black Caucus talked to brought up
18 some issues about the capitol PoIice, one being
19 Ehe no minorities above the rank of patrolman,
20 the other racial profiling issues, and the 1ast.
21, was br.ought up about the hiring practices of t.he
22 Capitol PoIice.
23 I wanted to know if you have any
24 update on those issues. Can you shed some light
25 on Ehose? SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: ff I can, I
z just checked with Deputy Secretary Speaks, f
3 think'werre going to have some very enlightening
4 and good news for you reaL soon. We haven't made
5 all of our internal notifications yet, so if it
6 pleases you, if we could just
7 week we'11 give you a ful1 report on that.
I RE PRES ENTAT I WHEATI-rEY: Thank you .
9 appreciate that. Thank you; Mr. Chairman.
L0 CHAI RMAN ARGAI,I, : Repre sentat ive
11 Forcier
T2 REPRESENTATIVE FORCIER:'Thank you,
13 Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, f have a letter in
L4 front of me. Itrs a copy. It is addressed to
L5 you and it has to do with strategic sourcing.
L6 And'it's from the president of a business in Erie l7 County, which is cLose to Crawford, Ry district.
L8 His namers Thomas Hut zelman and he . 19 is the president of Flex-Y-P1an Industries. And
20 he addresses a lot of concerns. .Itm sure you
2t have addressed him on this.
22 The letter i s d.ated ,f anuary 3 Ot,h.
23 But he caught my attention in the very last
24 paragraph, and he says, "W€ believe that there
25 are ways to save significant money in the state L1_1
procurement system, but we think that changes
should become as a resul-t of a dialogue with
3 designers, manuf acturers and d.ealers who have
4 worked within the present sys'tem. These are the
5 people who are in the best position to know where
6 savings can be achieved. We at Flex-y-p1an would
7 be pleased. to participate in whatever forum you
o may d,esign to discuss reform of the procurement
9 system. n
10 I guess my concern is have you
1l_ contacted all the vendors that have contracts
L2 within the sta.te and. have you been successful in
13 planning a forum or have you already had one? ' L4 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: What we,ve
15 done is it's simply impossible with a staff of
16 five or six people running this initiative to t7 proactively' reach out to every vendor who has
1B supplied the Commonwealth. f donrt necessarily l_9 even know that you would want our salary d.ol1ars
20 going to just doing that
27 But so in lieu of tshat, what ne have
22 done is we met with associations. And in that
23 specific example, furniture supplier association,
24 werve met with several Eimes. Werve met with
25 technology council here in the Greater Harrisburg t]-2
' l_ area. Werve. been Erying ,to dr.ive the message out
2 and have a d.ialogue wi th supply-based
5 associat ions .
4 fn some specific cases where people : i I written lst have to us, every case we.r ve either I I l5 written back or made a phone call and talked
7 through the issues of what the state contracts
6 are and how they can bid in and participate in on
9 them.
L0 REPRESENTATIVE FORCIER :
11 Mr. Secretary, could you have done just a mailer i . t2 out to all those vendors to notify them that i L3 there ?re going to be some changes and yourd like
T4 their input? Has anything like that been done?
15 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: We11, no.
16 . No. And werve tried to go through a
T7 time-effecLive and cost-effective mechanism to l_8 take input.
19 I-,etrs also not kid ourselves. If
20 Ifm supplying the Commonwealth and f know I.rm
2t getting a 4O or 45 percent markup and I can buy
22 it cheaper, Irm not necessarily going to be happy
23 with a change in the st,ruct,ure.
24 We are doing this, c1ear1y, for the
25 taxpayers, who I work for. We are working with t r_3
l_ the vendor community. They have.an obligation to
2 supply us.
3 REPRESENTATfVE FORCIER: And of
4 course we know that they're taxpayers also.
5 I guess, to be very specific, their
6 concerns, even though they have done a letter to
7 you, have their concerns been incorporated in
I your plan and strategies o.f this new reform?
9
10 But I !m sure some of them would tel- 1 you no.
l_L REPRESENTATIVE FORCIER: Could you
l2 be speci f ic in j ust send.ing uo t,hel chairman maybe
L3 just a f.ist so that we can feel comfortable in
l4 suggestions that have been done by the vendors
15 and what you are incorporating in the reform so
16 that they know therers been a few ideas that you
l7 liked or that you are going to work with the
1B vendors in this case? r-9 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: Certainly.
20 And some of that has
2t When we met with t,he t,ech counciL ,here, they made
22 two or three suggestions to our IT service
23 buying, our IT hardware buying that we
24 incorporat,ed int,o t,he proposal s that went out on
25 the street. tl.4
1 And we have been making every effort o 2 we can to deal with associations in the commodity
3 communities when we're going out.
4 REPRESENTATIVE FORCIER: And just my
5 last question would be a concern on working Ior with organizations that work wiUh our sma11
7 businesses, like the Pennsylvania Chamber of
Commerce and Industries, if you've worked with
9 NFIB, -if you've worked with the agencies that
1.0 represent our vendors.
L1 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: Werve met
l2 with all of them. And, in fact, I had a long
13 meeting with Dave Black f rom the.1oca1 chamber
t4 here, made several suggestions about the program.
15 And. wetve incorporat,ed some of those suggestions
L6 in.
L7 REPRESENTATIVE FORCIER : And if you
18 could j ust get that inf ormation t,o our Chairman,
19 I ' d love to hear that
20 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: We certainly
2t wi11. We certainly will
22 REPRESENTATTVE FORCIER : Thank you
23 very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
24 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: Sure.
25 CHAIRMAN ARGAI-,L: Representative 1-15
t_ Mun dy o 2 REPRESENTATfVE MUNDY: Thank you.
3 Mr . Cha i-rman . HeI 1o, Secretary Cunningham.
,4 SECRETARY CUNNTNGHAM: He11o,
5 Representative.
6 REPRESENTATfVE MUNDY: f want to
7 swi t ch gears he re f or a minut e and t al- k about the
B vehicle fIeet. First of all, can you give us an
9 idea on how much the Commonwealth spends yearly
l_0 on vehicles? Do you have any ballpark? ff you
1l_ donrt, that rs okay.
t2 SECRETARY CUNNTNGHAM: f dontt want
J-J to be held to this number, but wer re estimating
t4 we spend about 30 million annually in buying and
15 replacing vehicle f 1eet,.
16 REPRESENTATIVE MUNDY: And with
1-7 regard to your Depart,ment and the Governorrs
1B initiative to save money, can you te11 me what
19 changes you might, have made in your purchasing
20 procedures with regard to vehicles?
2t SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: We11, I think
22 itts important to know the Commonwealth does own
23 37. 000 vehicles, and that includes PennDOT, it,
24 includ.es obviously work vehicles. And theyrre
25 not all just passenger vehicles. About 20, OO0 of 115
those are within PennDOT. L7,000 are. within the
I 2 other agencies.
J The Governor has clearly stated and
talked about it in his- budget address that he
5 believes there's far too many vehicles, tha
6 are too generous with allowing state employees to
7 have vehicles.
8 He has ordered the Department of
9 General Services to reduce the size of the fleet
l-0 by 5 percent, and to reduce the size of our SUV
11 component by 2O percent.
t2 So we are on an aggressive program
13 to dr.ive the size of the fleet downward
I4 strategically, not just across-the-board, but to
15 try to be less generous in taxpayer-funded
L6 vehicles for employees.
17 Along those lines, wetve also
l_8 modified life-of-the-vehicle issues. It was
19 standard practice in the Commonwealth that at
20 65,OOO miles we turn the car back in, bought a
2t new one.
22 We11, I don't know too many
23 consumers out there that do that. There may be
24 some that do it. I come from an o1d steel town
25 where people drive cars until they fa11 apart. tt7
i .:.But we".now have bumped that up to
2 BO,OOO miles. So welre getting an extra'15,000
3 miles
4 $13 milLion, just by inching up life-of-vehicLe.
5 issues.
6 Thirdly, what we have done is as we
7 have done with a lot of these other smart buying
B init,iatiyes, werve limited we focused on
9 functional, good quality vehicles that can get
l-o the. job done and reduced the plethora of vehicle
11 choices that a standard Commonwealth employee has
L2 in purchasing new.
13 REPRESENTATIVE MUNDY: And Ilm
l4 hearing a Lot about, these t,his management and
15 prod.uctivity initiative. And is thaL separate
16 and apart from your strategic sourcing
!7 initiative? And can you talk a littIe bit, about
l_8 that, and the kinds of savings that yourve
l-9 achi,eved with that'initiative?
20 SECRETARY CUNNfNGHAM: Yes.
2t Management and productivity initiative is the
22 Governorrs initiative across all of the executive
23 branch agencies to find ways that we can save 'ei.ther 24 money on operating government, j-n supplies
25 or organj-zing ourselves. 118
L So, again, as I said earl_ ier in
2 response to Chairman Arga11, the taxpayers'
3 dollars are not being wasted on our own
4 operations and are being placed into the policy
5 agenda that matters to the Governor and to t,he
6 General Assembly
7 Strategic sourcing, which werve
t' talked about at length here, is merely one
9 component part of a greater management t_0 productivity initiative. The Governor has asked l_1 and required the executive branch agencies to
12 find $1 billion in savings over the course of
L3 four years.
14 And, how werve managed government
15 more efficiently and we can find reductions, so
1_6 there are a whoLe host of items t,hat are going
T7 oD, other than smart purchasing, to find those l_8 type of reductions in t,he management of
19 government.
20 If you want me to --
27 REPRESENTATTVE MUNDY; rfust an
22 examp I e or two.
23 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: One examp 1 e
24 that is linked somewhat to purchasing i s, I was
25 starting to say in answer to an earlier question, 1L9
L the way we do warehousirg, the way we do o 4 printing. We. have 19 warehouses in the Greater
Harrisburg area, supply depot. 16 of them we
.1 - lease - 14 of them hre l ease, about 5 of them we
5 not ?*r. sure of exact numbers. '6 And what we do is we buy goods in
7 advance; we put them in warehouses. We pay a lot
8 of overhead. We pay for a Lot of staff. And
9 werre incurring a lot of costs in somewhat,
t_0 archaic sEructures of operations.
l_L We are basically trying to look at
I2 can we operate smarter; can we take waste out. I 13 And werre going through kind of system by system 14' to do that.
15 REpRESENTATIVE MUNDY: Thank you.
16 CHAIRMAN ARGALI-,: Repre sentat ive
t7 Bake r .
1B REPRESENTATIVE BAKER: Thank, you , .Mr. 19 Mr. Chairman. Secretary, last week when
20 referring to your Department I s reverse auction,
2I the Governor made a great quote, and r agree with
22 it entirely. r think every member here in the
23 appropriations committee would agree with it. He o 24 said, Remember, we have a solemn duty to get the 25 best possible return on the taxpayers' d.o11ar. 120
1 I think that's extremely
2 meritorious. I think the taxpayers will agree
3 with that entirely.
4 My concern, however, it,s my
5 understanding that we are spending your
6 Departmentrs spending $e million in valuable
7 taxpayer dollars to pay for a Bermuda-based
B consulting firm to help with your strategic
9 sourci.ng initiative.
l_0 My first question wouLd,be was that
11 a bid contract or what kind of arrangement was
t2 that?
13 SECRETARY CUNNfNGHAM: In short
l_4 answer a: ahat, as wit,h any prof essional service,
15 we went ouL with request for professionals. We
16 accepted. proposals from, f think, six, five or
l7 six different firms, went through a system of
LB oral interviews and ended up striking the
L9 contract wiUh Accensure, l_8-month contract 15
20 month contract for, as you quoted it, based about
2t $e mil1ion. It could be less.
22 Quite frankly, there are. -- there
23 are milestones in there in terms of savings
24 gtenerated, that i f they do not help us generate
25 at a milestone mark they have to g j-ve money back. t2t
REPRESENTATfVE BAKER: What's
2 troubl ing about this i,s that this is a
3 Bermuda-based company. And it's my
4 understanding, and correct me if Irm wrong, that :]'t:: 5 companies based. in Bermuda do not pay taxes.
6 So this g6 million in effect going
7 to thls company is not gaining pennsylvania any
B return on taxes from the standpoint of that
9 consulting fee being taxable; am I correct?
10 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: WelI , j ust
LL two comments there. Accensure is noE a new
t2 business to the Commonwealth. I mean, the
L3 Rendell Administration was not the first
1-4 administration to hire Accensure. They had
L5 existing contracts when we got here. So that is
l-6 not something I think is fair to hang on the
I7 admini st rat ion.
' L8 And well anyway, I'11 stop there.
19 REPRESENTATf VE BAKER: .We11, a 1ot
20 of a lot of members have brought this issue
2L up. And it is a fair question when we,re dealing
22 with investment of taxpayer dollars of g6
23 ml I 1 ion. That I s not pocket change . And
24 pardon me.
25 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: .Just in ]-22
"l_ addition to that, as you know, there are -- Uhere o 2 are no laws I know there,s discussion going
J on, but there are no Commonwealth staLuEes that
4 donrt allow us to do business with a firm that
5 may have a headquarters overseas.
6 REPRESENTATfVE BAKER: We11, it was
7 a revelation to many of us, quite frankly, that
8 we have invested $6 miLlion in the company that
9 some view thatrs based in a tax-dodging country, 'any 10 that does not. make return on its investment : 1L f rom that $6 million that was.spent..on that
t2 company.
L3 So I, for one, did not know this
t4 until today. And many of our members are very
15 concerned about investments overseas in contracts
15 that that even though there may be return in
t7 the consulting practices that you may implement
18 1ater, that 96 million is just in essence we I re
L9 geEting no taxes on that
20 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: Itls not
2t entirely accurate, of course. Accensure has an
22 extensive employee work force embedded in the
23 United States, embedded in pennsylvania. And aII
24 those employees that are working in b.nnsylvania
25 and paying Pennsylvania taxes, they're paying t23
.L l-oca1 occupation privilege taxes. So but I
2 will say in concurrence with you, I didn't
3 reaL :rze, I donrt think any of us reaL i zed, it : 4 wasnla . part of the RFP on where your company j-s
5 headquartered.
6 REPRESENTATIVE BAKER We11, most
7 people Irm not one to cast dispersions or be I caustib or acerbic abou.t any issue, but and f 9 dontt mean to do this pun on words, but I am not
L0 one to accentuate the negative either with regard
11- to Accensure, but most companies that we contract
72 with in Pennsylvania they are paying tax, are
l_3 they not, orr that contract? f f. they, re located
14 here in Pennsylvania they're going to De pay]-ng
15 the Commonwealth taxes on that.
15 So I'm very concerned. about, again, t7 shipping the contract overseas or to Bermuda and
18 not seeing an immediate tax return on that
19 investment.
20 CHA I RMAN ARGAI,I, : Representative
2t Rohre r .
22 REPRESENTATTVE ROHRER: Thank you,
23 Mr Chairman. Mr. Secretary, o.ver on this side z+ over'here. I want to thank you for your
25 testimony so far. I know that and I want to ]-24
sdy, f irst of all, that I think.. -- and I
2 complement you from the standpoint of wanting to
3 save ttre taxpayers dol l ars , money. I don' t think
4 there's anyone who would disapprove of the intent
5 to save taxpayers dolLars with minimal input on
6 sma1l -- impact on sma1l business r think was the
7 phrase that you made. I think that would be
I coriect; however, I have a Iot of questions.
9 And the more f hear from
l_0 organizations, people across the state, hear
1l_ questions today and so forth, it remains a 1ot of
L2 . And f rm hoping that what
L3 we end up having is not more form than substance
T4 he re
L5 A question that was raised. at the
16 beginning had to d.o with the study. The chairman t7 asked if you had done an impact study on what
18 this would. do, not just coming to the bottom line
19 sayj-ng how many dollars may we save by changing
20 our purchasing, but the impact.
2L You'said that a sLudy had been done.
22 That's the first that I had heard of that. I
23 knew f had asked the Budget Secretary when he
24 said nothing had been done.
25. So my question would be could r obtain, could this could the Chairman obtain a
2 copy of the study that was done so we coul_d
3 review that ?
4 SECRETARY CUNNfNGHAM: Let me be
5 c1ear. I don't remember saying that a study was
6 done. f said that through 2OO3 we studied,
7 because of the lack of aggregated data and. a
8 central information system, we looked
9 aggressively internally on what we buy and how we
L0 buy and d.eveloped a plan based on that
1_1
t2 then an impact study has not been done by the
13 Department to basically you answer
t4 basically the answer is no to that. That would
L5 be my question. If you donrt have one then you
16 canrt supply it. I think that would be something l7 that would be very heIpful.
1B Another question or statement had
19 been made was that, I think Representative
20 Forcier had asked the question, before you made
2t the determination to go this route -- my
22 background is business too, so I know about
23 negotiating and getting good prices. That's
24 important.
25 But the contact with the various L26
L organizations that will be impacted in this
2 change, those that f have heard from have said
3 that, whereas some contact has been mad.e, it's
4 been pretty much one wdy, and that it was more an
5 announcement to them of what was going to be d.one
6 rather than a solicitation for input on how to
7 help the situation.
B
9 this: We are trying make no bones about it.
10 what we are doing is fostering an environment of
1l_ open competition to get best pricing for the
I2 taxpayers.
13. r aut not running a study proj ect for
T4 small businesses. There are enough st,udies in
15 government. rtts time aE some point somebody's
16 got to take action on behalf of the taxpayers. t7 And every month and every day that goes by that r-B we're overpaying is another do11ar wasted.
L9 REPRE S ENTAT I VE ROHRER: And I think
20 everybody here would agree with that. And
2t perhaps the negotiation the Department has done
22 could have been done better in the past, and.
23 perhaps that's what you're sayLng now Ls.your
24 best shot,
25 But I tm I rm wondering if there's ]-27
L be-en.the kind, of input that has that's rea11y t 2 necessary.
3 Now, one specific area as an
4 mpIe, you may, by changing the way"you.'re
5 sourcing,, improve the bottom Iine perhaps of the
5 Department. But have you checked into perhaps
7 how the purchasing may affect other costs,
B indirect costs, that might show up in other
.9 departments, as cost increases?
L0 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: Let me say
l_L this: Is that while this is somewhat new tro
t2 Pennsylvania, the idea of aggregating our buying
13 and going.out to the marketplace, this is by no
14 means a new concept that doesn't have information
15 surrounding it. The state Governor
L6 Schwarzenegger just announced doing it in
L7 Californi'a. Governor Bush has started the
L8 process in Florida . Every cost - conscious,
19 forward-thinking state in the union is doing what
20 every smart business and every smart consumer has
2T been doing.
22 I am not an advocate of stud.ying
23 something that is a proven successful operation
24 .across the private sector and forward-thinking
25 public sector as a way to not do something. 1 REPRESENTATIVE ROHRER: And neiLher o 2 am I. And lrm not, questioning you on f'm 3 just asking about the process.
4 A specific issue here that would
5 question in regard. to what I just asked, have you
Looked dt, again, on the specific let's go to
7 the issue of aggregate in asphalt, and one area
B you're looking at.
v If you were to go to the single
10 source, and r read your lett,er that was sent back
t1 how your re going to, I t,hink, narrow that down
t2 like 7l suppliers across the state, which is
13 probably legitimate, but have you factored in the
l_4 fact that PennDOT because asked a pennDOT
15 secretary on this quesEion just the other day
L6 when he was here, and he did noL have an answer
T7 for it and he said he must check into it:'
1B And the question is this: you may
L9 obtain the better cost from a single source.
20 supplier, but PennDOT is the one that pays the
2t delivery cost and all associated with t,hat issue.
22 Therefore therefore, it would
23 appear, under the contracts'that r have looked. on
24 this issue, that pennDOT costs will escalate.
25 The purchase price for DGS may go down, but I,m ].29
l_ not sure how the whole thinq bal-ances out. o 2 So that 's why I rm saying
3 trying tci be smart in my answ€r, but I rm asking,
4 there are there are impacts of some of these
5 things and have you looked at those in order to
6 rea11y make us comfortable that it wilL work?
7 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: The answer is
B yes. And as Ilve said over and again, although
g it, s not as appealing sensatj-ona11y, that we are
L0 app I yi ng this to 2O commodities and services out
LL of 257 in the state. And not in every one of
L2 these 20 commodities and services is there going
L3 to be a single vendor. Not everything lends
t4 itself to single vendor buying.
L5 Your example of asphalt is the
L5 perfect one. We went out a+d negotiated
L7 contracts with 73 suppliers, 6g of them.are 'And 18 Pennsylvania-based companies. we realized a
19 savings of #2.4 million just by being more
20 strategic about not just going across PennDOT
.2L distr j-cts, but regional distribution, putting
22 that volume together.
23 That $2.4 million will fill a whole
24 lot more potholes in Pennsylvania roads, and itrs
25 a much better use of the taxpayeisr dollars than 130
1 overpaying to buy the aggregate. i I 2 REPRESENTATM ROHRER: I know my
I time is up. I appreciate your answers a.nd we'II
4 be checking further on this. Thank you very
5 much.
CHAfRMAN ARGALL:. For the record,
7 Mr. Secretary, f think you may be the first
I member of the cabinet to reference Governor
9 Schwarzenegger and Bush in the same breath. r
L0 believe that was one for the history books.
l_1 Represent,ative DaI1y.
t2 REPRESENTATIVE DAIJLY: ThanK YoU,
13 Mr. Chairman. Mr. SecreE,ary
74 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM:
L5 Mr. Representative.
l_6 REPRESENTATM DALLY: How are you?
L7 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: Fine, thank
L8 you.
19 REPRESENTATIVE DALLy: Werve been
20 talking a 1ot about the procurement of efficient,
2t services. And r'd like to know what you and your
22 department are doing in terms of addressing
23 Lease-hoId costs, since f imagine the
24 commonwealth's got to be the largest tenant. in
25 the state. L3L
l_ ECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: That's a good.
2 point. I mean, one of our largest, if you want
3 to call it, service contracts are leases. We
4 spend roughly $l-50 million a year leasing office
5 space, warehouse space, and. retail space.
6 That is an area thac we are
7 aggressively looking at reducing the amount that
B we spend. leasing space and, first of all, better
9 utilizing our own space.
10 Let me give you one example that's
11 fairly concrete
!2 We are now linking our capital
13 projects and our own space to our Lease space.
T4 For instance, yourre aL1 familiar with the Forum
15 Building here in Harrisburg. The Forum BuiId.ing
16 has 70, 0 00 sguare feet of unused office space
T7 that we could be utilizing except itrs in need of
1B some capital improvements for HVAC, €1ectrical,
L9 fire safety, so forth to make it year-round
20 usable space.
2t There's no reason we ought to be
22 spending lots of money leasing when we have owned
23 taxpayer space that's being underutilized. z+ So we are strategically looking this
25 year at our own space and our leased space with 1-32
L an effort to consolidate.fully into own space and
2 a1so,. as Arga11 had poinEed .Chairman out earlier, 3 in an effort to try to consolidate, particularly
4 into downtown areas that need to be revitaLized.
5 REPRESENTATM DAI-rLY: Thank you.
The other quest ion I have, in your bud.get
7 narrative you mention that you intend to improve
I th^e percentage of m.inority and women-owned
.9 businesses realizing a share of the statefs
10 business.
11 ,Just brieffy, how do you intend to
t2 do that? And how do you determine whether a
l_3 busilgss,is, in fact, Rinority owned or a
14 woman-owned busi-ness?
15 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: Two thinqs is
16 that historically the request for having minority
L7 and women-owned business be a partner in state
18 contracts \^/as not appl ied to the purchase of
L9 commodities and services in any kind of
20 formalized. wdy, although we know that's $3.1
2t bil-1ion of our total spend.ing
22 In large part, minority and
23 women-owned business opportunities were applied.
24 to publi"l.rorks contracting and PennDOT
25 contracts. So first of all, we have actually 133
applied the initiat,ive to the larger area of
2 state spending: To answer the latter part of
3 your question, what we do is we have a very
4 rigorous certification process to ensure that
5 .businesses truly are smaLl businesses, and truly
6 are 51 percent minority or female owned.
7 Obviously therets been a policy
B statement made over the years in pennsylvania
9 that we'want to try to d.irect a .portion of our 10 st,at,e speJnding to help those businesses.
i.L REPRESENTATf VE DALL,Y: Okay. Thank
t2 you. : I 13 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: Thank you, t4 Representat ive .
l_5 CHAIRMAN ARGALL: Representative
L6 Habay
I7 REPRESENTATIVE HABAY: Thank you,
l_8 Mr. Chairman. Welcome, Secretary. Good to have
19 you here today.
20 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: Thank you.
2t REPRESENTATIVE HABAY: I.IeT me asK
22 you, when a time when security is a top concern
23 across the state why is your office decreasing
24 the Capitol PoIice force and will it, result in
25 any layoff for any officers currently on t,he t34
l_ force and will there be a reduction?
2 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: No, there
3 will be no layoffs of Capitol Police police
4 officers. I believe our complement right now is
5 abouE L75 Capitol PoIice officers. . In fact, w€
6 did something this year that I think greatly
7 improved the productivity and t.he application of
I the foree. We hired the former poLice chief of
9 Harrisburg, Chief Shaffer, who has extensive
10 experience in municipal policing and I t,hink has
11 really kind of turned around some of the focus
1,2 and int,ensity of that Department. o L3 REPRESENTATTVE HABAY Where would L4 t,hat, money be coming from? Where is that being
15 pul1ed out of?
16 SECRETARY CUNNTNGHAM: I I m sorry,
t7 which money are you referring to?
L8 REPRESENTATIVE HABAY: The money for
19 the Capitol Police, the reductions o f ove'r 4
20 percent year i-n their budget, what will .this 2t those be targeting?
22 SE CRETARY CUNNINGHAM: What I
23 think what I believe you're referring to in
24 terms of reductions is paper reductions, is that
25 a year ago there was a thinking. that we needed to I hire new additional officers. And what we have
2 said. is that werre comfortabL e with the existing
3 complement.
4 As I said, there will be no layoffs
5 but we d.onrt feel there is a need at this point
6 to hire additional officers Lo do the job of
7 securing the capitol and the state office
B buildings.
9 REPRESENTATTVE HABAY: The other
L0 point thank you very much. The other point
11 thaE, I was looking at from a business t2 perspective, f grew up in a smalI business
13 family, kind of a family business for 5g years. t4 I was just concerned. And I know
15 they've been doing this in a number of states. I L5 And I don't doubt yourre trying to save costs. I
1-7 know they've done iL in Virginia, IIlinois, and
1B the U. S . Postal Service. But the-point I'm
19 trying to make is if you look at the numbers from
20 the Office of Management and Budget that have
2t come from t,he president from l-9g2 through 2OOL
22 and showed a 60 percent reduction in the amount
23 of small businesses that were involved in being
24 able to workr 1rou know, with the federal
25 government, reducLion, which real1y took away a r_36
1 Iot of opportuniUies for people, what, happened
2 was the contracts from the numbers that I have
3 according to the OMB, L1,651 were in fiscal year
4 2AOL. That was down from over 26,000 in 1992.
5 I had a legitimate concern about
6 that happening on the state 1eve1, as we would
7 have options that were taken away, it would leave
B a few vendors that would actually thwart
9 competition and become monopolistic.
0 question .L And my isn't as partisan
Ll_ and such. rtm genuinely concerned about this and
12 f want to see what your response wouLd be to
13 that.
L4 SECRETARY CUNNINcHAM: My response
15 is that clearly the administrat,ion has put r_6 tremendous ef f ort, the Governor I s put t,remendous
L7 focus in creating jobs and, business opportunities
1B in Pennsylvania.
19 While I'm not a hundred percent
20 familiar with the federal report yourre citing, I
2L can say that one of the things that happen on the
22 f ederal s id,e that we are , and f want to be very
23 c1ear, are not doing is contracE bundling
24 Contract bundling is basically
25 department store shopping for to use kind of a ]-37
1ay term f or that, where you .go out to contracts
2 and ask for one supplier to give you office
3 supplies, to give you perishable and
4 nonperishable foods, so forth and so on. And I
5 donrt mean this is to be partisan, but it,s a 'contract,or 6 very .Ha1 Burtonesque approach to one
7 give them the whole bundle and let them do the 15
B or 2O subsets within that.
9 We in Pennsylvania under this'
1o program are not doing that. In fact, w€ have
1L actually debundled some of our contracts to get
J-2 very specific bids on different component
l_3 commodities and services
t4 REPRESENTATM BARRAR: Wonrt it
15 sti1l result in choices for the Eaxpayers here in
l_6 Pennsylvania, and options and eventually more
I7 larger companies having larger share and l-ess
L8 competition among the smaller companj-es?
19 I know it's not HaI Burton.esque. f
20 know that's a popular catch phrase today wit,h
2t everything in Iraq, but 1et's bring'it back to
22 the state 1eve1. ftts going to reduce the
23 choices that we have and, ultimately raise the
24 cost.
25 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: No, it wontt. 138
1_ It wilL do the exact opposite. Ouite honestly,
2 all. *.'r: doing is saying we buy 25, OO O pC's,
3 give us your best. price per unit on purchase of
4 75,000 PC's instead of us buying a hundred here,
5 2OO there, a thousand there and. paying more than
6 we need'to per unit
7 Itrs. nothing that you or I would do
I in our homes or any business would do that's
9 smart at wanting to be competitive in the
10 marketplace.
1_L REPRESENTATIVE BARRAR: Thank you.
t2 CHAIRMAN ARGAI_rL: Representative l-3 Sturl a .
' 1_4 REPRESENTATIVE STURIJA: Thank you,
15 Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Representative. T know
L6 a year or so ago the Governor spoke about trying
1,7 t,o save money through consol idat ing car l centers
1B and looking at savings there. t_9 Can you fill us in on where you are
20 in terms of call centers, how yourre approaching
2t this and how we can make sure that, those jobs are
22 staying in Pennsylvanj-a and sti11 getting a good
23 price for them?
24 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: I f you don't
25 mind, R€presentative Sturla, Irm going to let r-39
1 Deputy Secretary Yarkin, for procurement, answer o, 2 your question' on that.
3 DEPUTY SECRETARY YARKIN: Ther€, s, I
4 guess, one good. example of this you may be
5 familiar with. Itrs can you hear me now?
6 Speaking of call centers.
7 There's one good example,
I Representative, of thi s . And there I s an RF.p
9 that 's on 'the street, actually j ust closed, f or
10 health and human services caLl center where we
11 took about -: itts about eight different call
L2 centers that . effect human services from DpW and I 13 health, et cetera, putting them all into 6ne call t4 center so that a cal1er who has a guestion
15 doesnrt have to make eight phone ca11s, can make
t6 one phone .caI1 and get the answer that he or she
l7 needs.
LB I think thatrs' a good example of how
19 we can make A, save money, and B, make
20 government more efficient for our citizens one
2L call as opposed to eight, and better service.
22 REPRESENTATIVE STURLA: Okay. Thank
23 you. o 24 CHAI RMAN ARGAI-rL : Repre sent at ive 25 Lynch. L40
l_ REPRESENTATTVE LTyNCH: Thank you,
.2 Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, f want to ask you
J to do something on a follow-up of what
j-ve 4 Repre s ent at Barrar, I be 1i eve i t wa s , was
3.' talking about earlier. And I think you ought to
6 be able to do this. I donrt. pretend to know how
7 your Department works, all the ins and outs, but
B you ought to be able to do this.
9 Can you provide, like going back
10 maybe three years, what percent - - what percent,
1_l_ of your purchasing power is products delivered
T2 from Pennsylvania businesses?
13 I SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: We'd love to
14 be able to do that . Very di f f icult . I-ret me give
L5 you an example of why itts very difficult.
L6 Under the current system, which as I t7 said before there has been no centralized system
1B across the Commonwealth, letrs take an example
19 of -- take an example of Wa1-Mart:
20 If a purchase was made at Wa1-Mart,
2L whj-ch is happens all over the place either
22 with a card,or employee goes and purchases at
23 Wal-Mart -- the address for that wilI show up as
24 Wa1-Mart such and such address in punxsut,awney.
25 But Wal-Mart is not a Pennsylvania-based 141
l_ business. So that's very difficult
2 REPRESENTATIVE IIYNCH : f know where
3 you I re headed. That 's why I say go back t.hree
+ years. Quite frankly, this should be an easy
.5 task.
6 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: It shouLd be
7 but it's not.
B REPRESENTATM LYNCH: We11, here,s
I how you do it. Punch in all the zip codes that
l-o are in Pennsylvania, okay. And. just give me the
LL pe.rcent f or the last three years. Itm look
t2 don't look f or trend. ,.fust 'give percentr me !ot l_3 the last three years of all of your purchasing
L4 power, how much is delivered from a.zip code
15 within Pennsylvania
16 I know there's the ins and outs. t7 They're always going to be there. f rm not
L8 looking to be that precise. Itm looking for a
19 15-minute computer program
20 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: I rm sorry.
21 REPRESENTATTVE I,YNCH: I believe,
22 maybe an hour
23 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: You started
24 your comments by saying you dontt necessarily
25 understand how our syst,ems work L42
REPRESENTATIVE I_TYNCH: I know that.
2 I was being kind. But with all due respect
3 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: - - which you
4 don' t .
5 REPRESENTATM I-,YNCH: I real1y
6 think you can d,o this in a timely f ashion. And
7 Itm not looking for you to be real cute with aII
B the accuracies. What Irm looking for is a trend,
9 as long as yourre consistent wiUh how you handle
10 it for the past three years, and we have a base
l_L for next year. Okay?
J,2 f think as long as you're consistent o 13 with the way you handle it, all Irm looking for l-4 is what what percent of your purchasing power
15 is delivered from business that have a
16 Pennsylvania zip code.
17 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: I guess the . l_B nnint' --
19 REPRESENTATIVE LYNCH: I don.tt want
20 to dwel1 on this.
2t SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: The poinr
22 was making earlier is if it has a pennsylvania
23 zip code, does that mean i t, ' s a pennslzlvania
24 business?
25 REPRESENTATTVE. I,YNCH: I don'T caTe. 143
l_ That's the point I 'm making. I donrt care.
2 Tha t I s why we have trends. Because
3 it if didn't have a Pennsylvania zlp code this
4 year, it doesnrt have one Last year, it doesnrt
5 have one the.year before, and it won't have one
6 next year either.
7 A11 I im caring about is the one
I the products you have that are delivered from a
9 Pennsylvania zip code. f rm not trying to be cute
l_0 about this.
' l_L That I s aL 1 I 'm asking for. I know
L2 there are j-naccuracies j-n there. But as .1ong as
13 we are consistent with those inaccuracies ,
l4 Eheyrre going to have kind of -- we'1I have a
L5 trend, okay
16 Now, orr Lhe plus side, orr the plus
.!7 side, can you do that and deliver that to the
18 Cha i rman ?
L9 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: lile f d.on'
20 think we can do exactly what you'-re asking for,
2t no.
22 REPRESENTATIVE I,YNCH: You can I t do,
23 punch the Zip codes in, cantt do that?
24 SECRETARY CUNNfNGHAM: No. There is
25 no system-wide integrated computer data, wi t hout L44
1 us digging in to six or seven different systems
2 and rec ord.ers that are in hard copy. you aLL
3 realized this s-everal years ago when you made the
+ wise investment to create a system-wide Imagine
5 PA SAP-integrated system with a procurement
6 module. And thatrs been on line for -- the
7 procurement module's only been_ on line for a
B short period of time
9 As far back as we can go wiCh this
10 integrated SAP system we wiLl do it.
Ll_ REPRESENTATIVE I_ryNCH: Why don't you
T2 do Lhis? Why donrt you do what f asked with as
13 big a piece of our purchasing power as you can.
!4 SECRETARY CUNNTNGHAM: We will do
1_5 the best we can to .get what yourre asking. l_6 REPRESENTATfVE LYNCH: That ts fine.
T7 Now, I do want to thank you. f got a thank-you
L8 he re for you, f guess.
19 f want to thank you in working with
20 secretary I represent Warren, Forest, and
2t McKean County, which is important in this
22 statement. I want to thank you for working with
23 Secretary Beard for the final touches on SCf
24 Forest which will finally open up this October.
25 ?OO people that will be working t,here in his L district will appreciate that.
.2 Werre having a tough economy
3 nationally and in the state. And I haven,t heard
+ anybody ask this question. What p.lans does the
5 Governor have, or you have, for new building t
6 construction, new state construction? Is there
7 anything out there?
B And along that same line, what are
9 you doing to maybe approve the cost efficiency of
10 public works?
1l_ SECRETARY CUNNfNGHAM: The Governor, t2 we had completed a five-year capital budget plan, ' L3 which has 82 projects for 2OO4-2005 budget. As
3-4 you know, the same formula exists that was I
L5 utilized pretty much in past administrations of
16 about roughly 6O percent of our state capit,al t7 budgeL going to higher ed to SHHE, to the four l_B state assisted.
19 The Governor has clearly said that
20 we ought to be spending more of our public works
21_ doLlars in the arena of higher education. euite_
22 frankly, we ought to be spend.ing less on building
23 offices for Commonwealth employees, unless
24 theyrre absolutely need.ed.
25 I can get you the total the total 1 amount of the capi ta1 budget f or I O4 -, ' O5 . But
2 off the top of my head I don't know that number.
REPRESENTATIVE LYNCH: You indicaLed
you'd like to see less spent on buildings. And I
5 would agree wit,h that. But is that a plan or is
just 6 that your wish? .
7 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: No, I mean
I all of itj" on building. The.only DGS projects
that we do we do vertical build. pennDor d.oes
10 the highways and bridges. So everything we spend
1L is on buildings. r think the dovernorrs d.esire
I2 is that we spend our building money first and I l_3 foremost in the area of higher education, L4 classrooms, Laboratories, both at the state
L5 system and the state affiliated.
l-6 REPRESENTATIVE. LYNCH: Thank you,
T7 Mr. Secretary. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
1B CHAIRMAN ARGALL: Representative
19 zug .
20 REPRESENTATfVE ZUG: Thank you,
2L Mr. Chairma.n. I want to switch gears a f.ittle
22 bit and taLk about the rare book room, which f
23 think youtre f amil-iar with. rt, hords a priceless
24 collection of antiquit,ies f rom pennsylvania.
25 You are familiar with it? L47
1 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: Yes.
2 REPRESENTATIVE ZIJGz There is, f
3 guess, two methods to go ahead to preserve the
4 collection. One is to spend up to 6 million has
5 been authorized in the capital budget. There
6 is the Speaker Ryan put money in the capital
7 preservation of $400,000 a year, f think over
I time, to take care of that colLection.
9 understand that you prefer to do
10 it over time rather than spend the capital money.
L1 I also understood that you have taken people off
l2 the proj ect, architects which would be. important
13 to keep on the proj ect, because apparently there
14 is federal monies that can be wit,hdrawn drawn l_5 down onto for the proj ect.
15 Can you talk why you wanted to delay t7 the construct ion of the vault to preserve this?
1B SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM i We have
19 deve 1 oped the first point you made was
20 correct. We have developed a multi-year capital
2t approach towards improving the condit,ion of the
22 rare book room, which will include general
23 .lppropriations via the capital preservation
24 committee, and an effort to derive some private
25 money to help complete the necessary 148
1 improvement s .
' 2 We have not taken architects and ^' 3 engineers off. the proj ect. Werre very consc j-ous
.i of the fact there are federaL dollars out there
5 that coul- d be had .
6 The objective is really two-foId..
7 We realize-we have to improve the rare book room.
B We have some treasures over there that need to be
9 upgrad.ed., but we don,t think it shoul-d be f unded
10 1-O O percent by the state taxpayers, that Lhose
11 books have a value to the academic community.
T2 They have a value to other communj-t,ies across
13 Pennsylvania, and to the federal government
14 because Pennsylvania warehouses a 1ot of the l_5 federal government I s important works.
L6 So we have been working on a formula t7 that would bring in state tax dollars and mix it
L8 wi th f ederal- dol lars and other grant monLes.
L9 REPRESENTATIVE ZUGz I'm not sure
20 using the capital monies wouLd prevent you from
2t raising money privately or drawing down federal
22 money.
23 The problem is it delays the
24 project. Werre talking about,, you know, pieces
25 of paper that will disintegrate if they aren'L 149
1 something isn't done to store them. Wetre not
2 talking about fixing. We're just talking about
3 storing them in a room where air and sunlight
4 doesnrt get in, because ultimately that cou1d.'
5 destroy the collection.
6 And ftm afraid over Lime if this
7 doesnrt have the priority that f think it
U deserve s --- itrs Ehe General- Assembly's
9 coLlection. Ben Franklinrs Bible is in there
1_0 that we use to swear in our Speaker.
11 SECRETARY CUNNI WCUefU: And we agree
t2 with you completely. That's why werve developed
13 the j oint plan wit,h the Department of Ed.ucation
t4 to have multi-year improvement. Some significant
15 amount of work has already been done.
15 REPRESENTATIVE ZUG: Okay. I donrt t7 need five minutes on you know, so wer11. change t8 gears now. Thank you for doing it anyway. Itrs
L9 an important project I think.
20 You said that
2T Sturla talked. about call centers, bidding that
22 with RFPrs. In the RFp's does it say anything
23 about where . the new bidder needs to come from or
24 needs to be based out of?
25 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: I'm going to r_50
1 Let Deputy Secretary Yarkin
2 DEPUTY SBCRETARY yARKTN: r believe,
3 and I'11 confirm this later today, that there is
+ a requirement that it be in some proximity to
5 commonwealth agencies. The reason for that is we
6 want to make sure we can go and visit it, train
7 people who work there, oversee it. And if .it's
B too far away from us that limit.s our ability Eo
9 do that.
10 REPRESENTATIVE ZUG: As our chairman
1L talked a.bouE, earlier, you had used a consultant
T2 out of the country in the Bahamas,Bahama I think.
L3 Indiana, r think, has call centers that was using
14 call centers based in India that people in
15 Pennsylvania Dutch area wouId. have problems
L6 und.erstanding t7 You're not looking at outsourcing
1B the call centers to differenL country where rabor
19 is cheaper and therefore we donrt have problems.
20 DEPUTY SECRETARY YARKIN:. Again,
2l itls my impression there is a proximity
22 requirement to state agencies,-,so that would make
23 that impossible. But I r 11 double-check on thaL
24 and get back to you by the end of the day.
25 REPRESENTATM ZUG: And lasrIy, 15r_
1 have a letter from a constituent. in Lebanon who
I 2 has a.sma11 businessman who sponsors a baseball
3 team, pays local taxes, very concerned about how
.4 vacant store fronts and. other class cities you
5 were mayor of a third class city - - rfrat that
does t.o the economy of the community if you are .5 7 taking away the ability to, you know, sel1
B products and doing it with a huge. supplier that's
9 somepLace out of the country.
10 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: Let me
t_1 correct f or the record., f irst of all-, werre not
12 doing it with huge suppliers someplace out of the o r-3 count ry . L4 As a folLow-up, werd be happy to. see
l_5 who the business is. Ird be curious to see how
l_6 much business they did with the Commonwealth Iast
t7
l-8 Commonwealth's business is theirs. We'11 be
19 happy to talk to them.
20 REPRESENTATIVE ZIJGz f '11 get yoy
21 the letter. And we appreciate that..
22 CHAIRMAN ARGALL: Final question,
23 Representative Armstrong.
24 REPRESENTATIVE ARMSTRONG: Thank
25 you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I L52
understand that the program which benefits
2" minority and women-owned businesses is under a
3 review, specifically with regard to a companyrs
4 ability to qualify based on their annual sales.
5 Can you comment on'that,?
6 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: I think w'hat
'7 yourre referring to there is an adjustment to
8 in the program on how much business a company can
9 d.o .
10 In the past, a compdtry, to qualify
11 as a minority, women-owned business, was required
t2 to- do less than $B million I looked. at Peter
13 here $8 million in business. We have
I4 recommended. moving that up tro reflect growth in
15 the marketplace to $18 million.
l_6 REPRESENTATIVE ARMSTRONG: And where
l7 does it stand and where does this stand as far as
l-8 having it enacted?
L9 SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: We are in
20 formulation for the Governor to do an executive
2t order, specifically on the arena of minority and
22 women-owned opportunity, which the policy
23 document f or executive branch use. Wer.re' hopef u1
24 that we will have that out by the end of the
25 first quarter. 153
l_ REPRESENTATIVE ARMS TRONG Okay o 2 Thank you.
J SECRETARY CUNNINGHAM: You I re
,4 welcome.
5 CHA I RMAN ARGAI,I-,: Thank you very
6 much for your testimony, your answers to our
7 questions. We look forward to the follow-ups on
I those that were asked.
9 We will stand in re.cess until L:30,
l-0 at which time we will begin promptly with the
11 commissioner of the Pennsylvania State Pol ice.
t2 (e recess was taken.)
13 CHAIRMAN ARGALI-r: On behal f of the
t4 House Appropriations Committee, I'd like to
15 welcome all of you to the afternoon portion of
L6 day nj-ne. We turn now to Pennsylvania State
t7 Police, Colonel .Ieffrey D. Mifler, Commissioner.
L8 Colonel MilLer, please begin.
19 COLONEL MI I-rI-,ER: Thank you very
20 much, Mr. Chairman, members of E,he Committee. ' 21, I t ' s a pl easure to be here today. ,Joining me
22 today are Lieutenant Colonel Henry Oleyniczak,
23 our Deputy Commissioner of Staff; Lieutenant o 24 ColoneI Cynthia Transue, Deputy Commissioner of 25 Administ,raLion,. Lieutenant Colonel Ralph -
154
i_ Periandi, D€puty Commissioner of Operations; and t z Mr. Marc Infantino, director of our fiscal
3 of f ice.
4 To save time I wontt read my opening
5 remarks in the record, but you do have a copy of
6 them. I'11' just say Itd be happy to answer any
7 questions you have.
B Werve been very involved in the last
9 year implementing some very significant changes
L0 within the department r some in the area of
11 recruitment, some in the area of intelligence"led
t2 policing, our criminal intelligence center that
13 is now up and running and online, and wetve been
t4 doing.a lot in domestic security arena.
L5 So with that f would just open
L6 myself up for questions in the interest of time
I7 and so that all the members of the committ,ee
18 could be recognized.
19 CHAfRMAN ARGALLT: Thank you very
20 much, Colonel. Irve been asked. by Representative
2T Feese to ask you a question in regard to his
22 bi11, House Bill 1703
23 As you know, the State Police o 24 currently charge a $10 fee for individuals who 25 request.a criminal history background check. The 1 only individuals I guess exempt from this fee are
2 those who are seeking Eo become either a
3 volunteer with the Big Brothers Big Sisters, or
+ those who seek to volunteer with a rape crisis
5 center or domestic violence program.
6 And it is his intent to exempt all '7 individuals who are involved with a nonprofit
8 501 (C) (3 ) from that $10 fee. That would include
9 the Boy Scouts, the Little League coaches, and we
1_0 suspect it's a fairly significant number.
11 And I guess Irm curious if your
L2 department has any has taken any kind of a
l_3 position on this legislation? 'l.4 COIJONEL MILLER: Yes. Actua11y,
15 first let R€, by way of background., state that in
L6 2003. Pennsylvania State PoIice conducted 964,570
L7 criminal history background checks. took in : L8 $8. B million in support of that effort. ' 19 The actual $10 fee that is charged
20 does not actually cover the entire cost of what
2t we do. So in essence, anyt,hing that, we would do
22 to exempt more groups from having to pay Lhe fee
23 would have a d.irect impact on our ability to
24 provide the service in a timely fashion.
25 My suggestion to the General 156
1 Assembly.would be I think there's a better way to
2 do this. I think that the way to do it would be
3 to amend the Criminal History Record Information
4 Act, change'it, get rid of dual dissemination
5 standard that, we have in the Commonwealth.
6 By that I mean Pennsylvania is a
7 dual dissemination state, so what we have to do
8 is if a criminal justice agency requests criminal
9 history information from the State Police we l0 we as the repository can supply them everything
11 in the record., every conviction, all arrests for l2 which no conviction data has been reported, et l_3 ceUera.
L4 But if a member of the public or a
L5 noncriminal- j ustice agency asks f or a criminal
L6 history check, if there is an arrest on the file t7 that's in excess of three years old without a t_8 disposition, we must first use our personnel to
L9 try to research that wit,h the Court ,of Common
20 Pleas or prothonotary office. Some are very
2t responsive; some are not. And in essence at the
22 end of the day if we canrt get an answer to that
23 we have to scrub that from the record before we
24 send that to the publ in
25 I would offer to this committee and 157
t the General Assembly I think a more efficient way
2 to do that would be to get rid of the dual
3 dissemination standard completely within the
4 Commohwealth, and then allow us in the State
5 PoLice as the central repository, the keeper of
6 the rdcords, to post all those records on line:
7 that wouLd. be accessible to the publ ic ., That, way
B when the public wanted right now we have the
9 Pennsylvania Access to Criminaf History, pACH.
10 They have an online abiLity. 6o5, ooo of our
11 requests were done over PACH last year. 85
L2 percent of them get a no record response right
13 there that they can use. But my point is that
T4 t,here are a number of groups that are requiring
15 criminal history checks of individuals, but many
L6 cases these checks are not required by statute.
t7 So what in effect we wouId. be d.oing
l_8 if we leave the system in place and just exempt
l_9 groups more .is use Commonwealth dollars to exempt
20 groups that arenrt required by the' 1aw to have
2T t,hese checks done
22 I would offer that if we open the
23 whole thing up, anybod.y that wanted to get a
24 to do a check would have the abiliUy to d.o so,
25 online. It would probably be much more cost 158
1_ efficient for us as an agency. We could use some
2 of those resources werre using on almost. 1
3 million checks every year to just, support the
4 system. But we wonIt need alL of them working in
5 that area
6 I think it would be a better
7 program. Some other states have open
I dissemination of criminal history, and why not
9 just put the information out there.
10 CHAIRMAN ARGAI-,I-r: I ,11 certainly
l_ l_ share that information with the sponsors of the
t2 bil1. I also understand that from my own budget
l-3 analysis on.this, we wouLd not lose the whole g
14 million under the terms of this. I mean, the g
l_5 million is everyone and we,re not seeking to ': L6 exempt everyone.
l7 Can your agency provide any kind of
L8 an.estimate as to the exacL cost of House BiII
l_9 1703, were the House and the Senate to move ahead
20 with this bill as currently drafted?
2t COLONEIJ MI I-,LER: You know, I
22 dontt
23 be, but what you need to understand is the bigger
24 question here is, for instance, the,groups that
25 are exempted now, Big Brothers and Big Sisters, t_59
1 some rapg crisis centers, wetve had to put in
2 place a mechanism by which we can ensure that the
3 information flowing from these groups goes
4 throdgh a central point within the group and then
5 comes to the State Police repository. That way
6 we can ensure that people that are claiming
7 membership in a given group are, in fact,
8 members.
9 So when you start to expand the
10 scope of that beyond, like when you talk about
L1 Little League volunteers, they don't theyrre
1-2 not like one orqanization. There are Little
13 League volunteers all over the state.
14 I So as soon as the word gets out that
15 if you check the box t,hat says Little Lreague
L6 volunt,eer it, d.oesnr t cost you anything, how can
T7 we ensure that they are who they say they are and r_B it's for that purpose?
19 So in effect we are going to lose
20 the B.B million or a huge amount"of that, which
2t is going to be it,s going to delay the process
22 if we leave it as is. If we wouLd open it up
23 then everyone can get what t,hey need.
24 CHAf RMAN ARGALL : Thank you, , 25 Colonel. Representative Evans. 160
1 REPRESENTATIVE EVANS: Thank you,
2 Mr. Chairman. Good. afternoon.
3 COLONEIJ MILLTER: Good afternoon,
Representative.
5 REPRESENTATIVE EVANS: Crime labs,
6 you h.ave a $1.3 million initiative listed in
7 there. Te11 me a litt1e bit about what you
I intend to do with that l-.3 mil1ion.
9 COLONEI-, MILLER: That's for our DNA l_0 laboratory program. l_1 REPRESENTATfVE EVANS: Thatts for t2 your DNA laboratory program.
13 COLONEIJ MII-rI-rER: Right . Now, j ust
L4 by way of background, in 2 OO 1 we received 2 ,'71r1l l_5 convicted offender profiles. And last year, l_6 2003, w€ had l-9,900 convicted offender profiles. t7 So itrs a huge increase. And that was because of
18 the legislation we supported. I believe Senator
19 Dent was the primary sponsor of Act 57 , 2OO2.
20 And what that did was expanded the number of
2L convicted offenders that have to supply a sample
22 to us. And it included crimes such as burglary
23 and robbery. Burglary being the ma.in one because
24 that is a large felony category. And individuals
25 who commit burglaries are also correlated to a ]-6t
L number of other serious offenders, some of them
.2 sexual of f enses.
3 So when that happened, you know, our
4 influx of samples was increased like eight-foId.
5' So what we tried to do with the use
6 of robotics and outsourcing the actual initial
7 t.esting of those samples through federal- grant
I do1lars, werve tried to cut that backlog down and
9 werre working very hard on that. l_0 But one thing to remember, for the t_L committee to remember, is that in each and every
12 case where we outsource the sample, w€, the State
13, PoLice, stil1 have to review and interpret each
J-4 and every sample, upload the results to CODIS,
15, which is the system that matches up crimes where
L6 we donrt have a suspect to known samples, that we
L7 quantify .it , and. ad.ditionally we have to test the
18. representat ive sample of the samples that were l-9 taken and done by the outsource.company bo ensure
20 Eheir accuracy.
2t So there's a number of things in
22 play here . And what werve tried to do is
23 identi fy funding where we can increase the use of
24 robotics and also identify any funding that would
25 increase t,he number of personnel so that we can 1,62
cut into the;backlog. :
2 Therers current legislation pending
3 in General Assembly that would increase the
4 number of convicted offender samples to all
5 fefonies, which we support from a public policy
b appropriate '7 approach, because wetre going to identify more
tt people who are not now known to law enforcement
9 that committed. egregious offenses; however, that
10 would incrdase the number of sampres we receive
1l_ by a hundred percent. We'd be up in the 4O,OOO
t2 range instead of 20,000.
l_3 So there is some ramifications tro
L4 that. We believe we can work with the GeneraL
1-5 Assembly, the administration and with our fed.erar
I6 counterparts'to try to identify funding to
17 address that
18 REPRESENTATIVE EVANS: Thank you.
19 I'd like to follow up with one other question.
20 There was a red flag raised yesterday by the
2t chaj-rman of the Liguor Control Board. around
22 liquor control enforcement, and raised some
23 concern about the state porice Department being
24 able to do a good j ob in the a.rea of liquor
25 controL enforcement. L In your view, how is the Department
2 hand.ling the aspect of liquor control ? f t's my
.J understanding you receive as much as 18-, $19
4 million from the liquor.
5 You know, eXactly what is happenj-ng
6 with the Liquor controL board in terms of
7 enforcement? There was some concerns about the
8 'fo11ow-throu9h, the work, the execution,
9 documentation. And that was kind of ra j-sed by
L0 the chairman yesterday.
1t_ COLONEL MILLER: I did.n't have the l2 opportunity, Representative, to hear what the
13 Chairman said, but the budget thatrs put forth
14 for our Bureau of Licruor Control Enforcement is
15 somewhere in the ,r.rnnOorhood of $2 O mi11ion.
L6 I can te11 you that in 2003 we t7 received almost 14,000 complaints. We conducted
18 almost 52, OOO investigations. Werve done almost
19 3,-OOO open routine inspections. We checked
20 32, OOO establishments. We sent out violation
2L 1ettgr". We send out warning noLices. We Lry Lo
22 work with the industry to educate them in advance
23 so that we don't j ust catch them doing some.thing
24 wrong. but we prevent it in the advance of
25 something occurring. t64
1 We made almost 1-800 arrests for
2 individual served under 2]-. We arrested almost
3 3OO people over 21. We seized a number, you
4 know, beer, wine, €t cetera.
5 What wetve done in the last few
6 years is transformed from mainly a Iiquor control
7 enforcement function that was mainly undercover
.t' in nature, to a more open, duditing function. In
9 ^other words,. trying to work with the Licensees in
10 advance, trying to also improve the quality of
11 life for our employees who work in that capacity.
1,2 Because I think you can alt imagine
13 if your career was to go in to bars all the t,ime
1,4 and sit, on a barstooL and drink to gather
15 evidence of violations, that is not a very
16 attractive quality of life situation. So werre
I7 trying to address that by going'more in the lines
1B of open audits.
L9 But to answer your underlying
20 question, I would say that, you know, my review
21 and Deputy of Operations' review of what our
22 Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement folks are
23 doi.ng, werre very impressed with their
24 commitment,, the'1eve1 of detail. There's a
25 number of very serious investigations Ehat 165
1 they've spearheaded, some are stil1 pending for
2 appropriate prosecutorial authorities.
3 And I have seen no evid.ence of a
4 lack of fo1low-through in any wdy, shape, or form
5 by
6 REPRESENTATIVE EVANS: Which I do
7 work closely together. I s there meetings wit,h
B whoeverrs assigned to meet with the commissioners
9 on the I-,CB or the people over there in terms of ,
L0 you know, tdlking about various issues?
1l_ COLONEL MII-rI-rER: Right. We have t2 interactions, werre on a number of committees.
13 We supply" expert opinion on 1aw enforcement t4 matters, but try to come up with and develop
15 better policy from the standpoint of how liquor
16 i; dispensed and policed within tkre Commonwealth. ' L7 We have a number of committees,
L8 . Pennsylvania Aga j-nst Underaged Drinking, that
L9 werre involved. with wit,h them, with other groups
20 to try to id.entif y solutions to problems.
2t We're very well with colleges and
22 universities throughout the Commonwealth, we have
23 a number of federal grant programs that we pu11 ' 24 money in. And the sole purpose is to try to
25 . educate students at all 1eve1s, but mainly werre 166
L focussing on a number of universities throughout
z the Commonwealth where werve seen binge drinking
3 problems,ldeaths have occurred, €t cetera. We
4 try to put on programs to help train and prepare
5 these young adults for making the right kind of
6 decisi-ons.
7 So f wouId. defer Lo Colonel
6 Periandi, if he has any comments that he would
9 like to make
10 LIEUTENANT COI,ONEL PERIANDI: YeS,
11 sir. As you know, wetre funded^ by the Liquor
t2 Control Board, our Bureau of Liquor Control
L3 Enforcement. So they have regular, ongoing
L4 meetings,' oBgoing dialogue as to the particular
15 enforcement efforts that werre invoLved in.
1-6 And our stats rea11y
17 across - t,he -board over the l-ast f ive -year period
1B have remained fairly constant
t_9 If anything, theyrve increased a
20 little bit. Although we also like to see the
21 fact that if werre effective in our enforcemenE,
22 operations, we might see some of those stats
23 actually start to decrease from the stand.point of
j 24 having that, the number of violations.
25 " So, this this, without hearing r67
1 what the c.hairman !.estif ied to, werve wef re
2 not aware of any
3 between our Bureau of r-riquor control Enforcement
4 and the Liguor Control Board, itself.
5 REPRESENTATIVE EVANS: I d,on't want
6 to put words. in the Chairmanrs mouth. I mean,
7 obviously they speak for themself. -But the issue
8 came up around the question about around
9 enforcement yesterday. so ret me just raise that
10 as the issue I wanted to follow-up.
1l_ COLONEL MILLER: We,II certainly
t2 foLlow up on that, sir.
r_3 REPRESENTATIVE EVANS: Thank you,
14 Mr. Chairman.
L5 CHATRMAN ARGAL]-,: Representative
L6 Bake r .
T7 REPRESENTATTVE BAKER : Thank you,
18 Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon
19 COIJONEIJ MI LLER : Good afternoon,
20 Representative.
2t REPRESENTATM BAKER: The budget
22 includ,es $4 5 mil l ion Lo cont i-nue your primary
23 Lechnology initiatives. And among other thi-ngs
24 you have the redesign and automation of the
25 criminal- history repository. r-68
l_ Could you explain what money is .
2 going in to that and to what purpose?
3 COLONEIT MIL,LER: Right. I'm going
4 to defer to Irieutenant Colonel Oleyniczak tro gr-ve
5 you the exact details because you know he has
6 those.
7 IJTEUTENANT COLONEIJ OLEYNICZAK : Yes,
8 sir. The basic design, we went
9 to transition from a completely paper-based
L0 record.s system to a computerized record system.
11_ We have been successful over the
L2 last number of years, even with the prior 'is. 13 administration. This process ongoing. The
14 latest upgrade is to actually give us more
15 capacity on our servers so we can store more
15 information. And we have been working with the
.L7 Department of Revenue in addition to assist us in l-B scanning some older documents into the system. l_9 REPRESENTATTVE BAKER: So if a bill
20 that I have bef ore the j udic j-ary committee right
21 now expanded mandat,ory criminal background checks
22 for new hirees of higher education, for instance,
23 that would be able to handle that addit,ional
24 workload and any other requirements that may come
25 down in the next year or so? .:
l_ LIEUTENANT COLONEI, OLEYNICZAK: ThaL
2 is correct. My und.erstanding is Lhat we are
3 we're trying to be forward looking so we have
4 sufficient capacity to address additional
5 requirements in future years.
6 REPRESENTATM BAKER: Great. And
7 the other, Itm not too familiar with the
I technology, the additional funding for LIVESCAN . .9 fingerprinting. I think that's a mandate of the
L0 PatrioL Act.
11 COI-,ONEIJ MILL,ER: Yes.
1,2 RBPRESENTATIVE BAKER: Could you l-3 explain that to us? l4 . COLONEL MIL,LER: Yes, I can.
L5 Therers $r-.8 million that is in the Governorrs l-6 budget from the motor license fund. And that
T7 money is to augment the requirements of the
18 Patriot Act. Patriot Act requires that we
19 fingerprint all 1OO, OOO of the commercial vehicle
20 operators that have a hazmat certification when
2t their dr j-ver' s l icense renewal period comes into
22
23 So for the next four years we I re
24 going to have a hundred. thousand commercial
25 drivers that have that hazmat certification that ].70
L we do need to fingerprint.
2 ight now in Pennsylvania there are
3 103 LIVBSCAN AFIS terminals which are inkless
4 fingerprinting units out at police stations
5 across the Commonwealth. We in the state police
6 have 25 of those units currently.
7 What werd like to see, because of
B the requirements to the Patriot Act, in fact,
o that 75 percent of the fingerprints that we
10 receive in our criminal repository are electronic
LL in nature. The this motor license fund money
L2 is 1. B million will aLlow us to do the
t_3 fingerprinting exclusively using these types of
t4 devices and. then the d.evices would also be in
15 place to assj-st l-aw enforcement throughout the
16 Commonwealth, not just the State Police but loca1
I7 police that wouLd bring somebody in to be
18 f ingerprinted.
19 REPRESENTATM BAKER:lTust curious,
20 do you have any fingerprint capabilities in your
2t patrol cars ?
22 COLONEL MILLER: Not in patrol cars.
23 Therers a possibilit,y that we might have some
24 remote capabilities with some of our forensic
25 vehicLes as we build out our incident information t7t
1 management system infrastructure a f.ittle bit
2 further.
3 REPRESENTATM BAKER: And one last
4 question for you, this is rea1Iy a
5 constituent-related j-ssue, but f think it, has a
6 little bigger perspective and potential to be
7 addressed elsewhere.
I Regarding DUIrs, I notice your DUI
9 arrests were up probably 5 percent or more this
L0 past year
l_ l_ . I have a young man in my district
t2 who had a DUI in 2002. He completed the ARD in
13 August of 2003, and as required the clerk of
t4 courts sent, the expungement order to the State
15 Police in mid September of 2003. Unfortunatefy,
15 nothing's been done yet to process that
t7 expungement, and wetre almost, aL the end of that
1B six-month period.
19 And I1m wondering if that is
20 symptomatic of a technology problem or logistical
2a issue or a staffing issue that this is taking
22 almost six months to process, because obviously
23 this young mants job opportunities are extremely
24 limited because of this
25 COLONEIJ MILLER: Thatrs a good 1,72
L question, R€present,ative. The expungement issue
2 is one in which we have a backlog, a significant
3 backlog thatrs related to the number of
4 expungement requests that we receive.
5 We have a backlog right, now of about
6 L6,400 expungement requests. Thatrs because
7 we the number of expungemenE,s have gone
B through the roof in the last several years, and.
9 staffing leve1s are not adequate to keep up
10 with the number that come in.
1L So werre looking to try to ident,if y
t2 ways to add personnel so that we can.more quickly
13 red.uce the number of expungement order requests.
1-4 fLrs one of Lhose things that Len
L5 years ago r^ras not as big of an issue, but now the
15 number of expungements has just mushroomed. f
L7 donrt have t,he exact numbers in front of me for
18 how much, but the percentages huge. .are 19 . We did add two personnel over the
20 last couple years, which ig helping. But again,
2t the problem is a large one.
22 REPRESENTATIVE dernR, My time is
23 up. I would like to segue into that staffing
24 issue a bit further, perhaps another member wiLl
25 do that for rTl€, but I certainly hope you get the L73
addi t ional staffing to catch up with that huge
2 backl og . Thank you.
3 CHA I RMAN ARGAI-rL: Representative
4 SturIa. : 5 REPRESENTATIVE STURITA: Thank you,
6 Mr. Chairman
'7 Colonel Mj-11er, f want to first say
B that f hope'you get the increase in complement
9 a1so. And I think that the State 'Police do a-
10 great j ob here in Pennsylvania. And I don't want
11 you to take any of the remarks that f make as
I2 critical of the State Police.
13 What I -- my con.cern and my question
L4 wiLl be those communj-ties that get free services
15 from the State Police. And I know that you do
16 work in every community in the state, whether t7 it's background checks, you knowr gur checks
18 you name the list of services that you provide
19 1ab services, those various things.
20 But then there are those special
2t communities, as I I 11 call them, in this state
22 that are actually fairly large in number but
23 don't have many citizens in them. I think it's
24 about 27 percent of the state's population which
25 lives in about 77 percent of the state's land ]-74
1 mass area.that gets free patrols from the state o .2 police.
3 And then to add insul t to in j ury,
4 and f know this is not your purview, when you
5 write a traffic ticket in that area, they even
6 get a reimbursement from the state at the end of
7 the month from the traffic ticket that you wrote
B So not only are they getting free
9 police protection, but they're getting a check
l-0 sent to them at the end of the month because you
1l_ guys worked'hard and wrote a ticket in that area
l2 Can you give us an idea of how much
L3 .money gets spent patrolling that 27 percent of
l4 t paying for
15 local police service that's relying on the state
16 to provide. it, f or themT
t7 COLONEL MILLER: I-ret me give you a
18 litt1e background. The state police provides
19 police protection to 27 percent of the
20 population, encompassing 85 percent of the land
2t mass including 66 percent of the highway miles
22 and o.r"i 6O percent of municipalities with. 19
z5 percent of the total police officers in the C, 24 Commonwealth. This is just as backdrop. 25 There are 24 municipalities with 175
1 popul-at ions that have in excess of 5 , 0 0 0 people
I z that provide only sporadic part-time police
3 services. The total populations in the
4 municipalities with more than 5,000 that have
5 either.no police or part-time police is 26.9
6 percent of the area of the individuals that we
7 service.
B Now, you do bring up a good point.
9 Itrs a question of equity. And there are cases
10 that there are large townships with, you know, in
11 excess of 4O,OOO people that have chosen to rely
t2 upon t,he State Police as a sole police provid.er.
L3 We don't have a problem doing that,
I4 but what it creates for us is a situation where
l-5 we have to puI1 resources from our staffing
15 formula from other parts of the state where they
I7 don't have the population to support the 1ocal
L8 police department and then expend. those resources
19 at a higher level in those larger areas to
20 provide the leveI of service that ! s expected and
2t required.
22 So you know, there have been
23 measures in the past. I think Governor Ridge had o 24 puU forth some initiatives. And there are things 25 that we could look at by population. In excess L76
1_ of 9,OOO you could look at. And you couLd look
2 at per capita, you know, what it costs for polj-ce
3 service and then sdy, well if you have 9,OL0 you
only' pay for the ten people over the g, using
5 that as one of the figures.
6 But I donrt know if that gives you a
7 I ittle backqround.
I REPRESENTATIVE STURIJA: WelL, it
does. But f guess I would suggest that it not
l_0 just be communities of a certain sj-ze. Unless
L1 their local- tax rate is what my 1ocal tax rate
t2 is, because I know that in my municipality, 40
l_3 percent of my local taxes go to pay my police
L.4 force. And I think that's a good thing. But my
L5 tax bill in a lot of cases is 40 or 50 percent l_6 higher than a municipality that doesn't have t7 Eheir own police force.
L8 And so when somebody says, weI1,
19 they just canrt afford to pay for those services
20 that the State Police provid.e, my counter is,
2t we11, w€ canrt afford for our services either but
22 werre not going to shut down our police
23 department, and if we did we would put an even
24 more burden on the State Pol- ice .
25 My view of what the State PoIice ,il
177
l_ should be is-.you gpys arg, the best, and the
z brightest. you guys should be doing the
3 intermunicipal tasks that otherwise sometimes
4 therers conflict between porice departments or
5 .township supervisors or those kind. of things
6 where you can't can'L get those things worked
7 out.
I When f look at the sniper incident
9 in Maryrand back awhire dgo, if that had occurred
L0 in Pennsylvania, in one of our counties there
11 was a county sheriff r think that handled that
T2 case'. rf that had occurred in one of our
L3 counties here in pennsylvania, there wourd. have
L4 been 5o different police departments involved in l_5 ir.
I6 Those are the kinds of cases you
l7 guys should be doing, but yourre out there at the
.1b same time doing somebody's LocaL police work for
I9 t hem
20 And f guess those taxpayers are
21 getting off pretty cheap in my mind. If they
22 want,' to pay 50 percent more taxes so they can
23 then pay you, I,m okay on that then, because at I 24 least I know that my strate tax dollars are beincr 25 used for those servj-ces that are going Uo help my 178
1 citizens also
,2 So I would just I'd be more than
3 happy to work with you on this. As I saj_d, .I
+ want your complement to stay high. I would like
5 to see it get higher. I think there are things
o that yourre doing that are ext,remely innovative
7 that we should be letting you do that 1oca1
B police departments canrt do. But the things that
9 a local police department can do, either they
10 should be doing that or they should be paying you
11 for those services.
1,2 .CHAIRMAN ARGALL: Representative
13 Arms L rong .
L4 REPRESENTATfVE ARMSTRONG: Thank
15 . you, Mr., Chairman. And thank you,. Colone1, f or
L6 being with us. t7 My 1ove1y assistant,, Representative
1B FIeagle
L9 COLONEIT MII-rLrER: I ' 11 reserve
20 j udgment on t,ha t
2t REPRESENTATTVE ARMSTRONc: -- has
22 been kind enough to put up a graphic Ird 1ike to
23 get to in a minute
24 First, I appreciat,e the idea you had
25 which you mentioned to us about how we can absorb 179
1 s ome of the costs doing background checks TI
2 just seems that everyone's asking for.
3 But to get to the graphic, the uop
4 graph, which is out of the Governorrs budget
5 book, g j-ves the number of State Police per
l 6 L00,000 in 7 different st,ates and it shows that
7 Pennsylvani a is obviously way out in front.
B But I donrt think that that graph
9 shows the whole pj-cture because if you consider
10 those other states, those officers do just
LL highway-type law enforcement. You know, w€ all
1,2 know about the California Highway Patrol, the
L3 CHiPs. But if you think about what the state
1_4 troopers in Pennsylvania are asked to do it's
15 quite a bit more.
1_6 So I think that - - and wouldn't you t7 agree, Co1one1, that the bottom graph is perhaps
18 more .reflective of total state total police
L9 protectj-on when you consider that the State
20 Police in Pennsylvania are asked to do a 1ot more
2t E,han j ust highway patrol ?
22 COLONEL Mf I-rI-rER: We1I, I wouLd agree
23 with the assessment that, we' are a fu11-service
24 police agency. provide We a . fu11 range of police 25 services. f rm f amiliar wit,h the states that 180
l_ are just looking at the top of the graph
O 2 there, the states of New York, Michigan, and
J Texas are perhaps more like what we do. The
4 states of California, Ohio, and. Florida provide
5 highway patrol organizations which are different '6 than a state police organization that does both.
7 So your point that therets some
I difference, there is some difference within
9 within both charts. And ftm not familiar enough
10 to say that the bottom chart is completely
11, accurate, but would concede that you have to
t2 consider perhaps more than just per l-OO,0OO,. but
13 you might have to look at what other law
t4 enforcement resources are applied, in what way
1? they might be applied and given the state for you
16 to get the complete picture of what it means.
t7 REPRESENTATIVE ARMSTRONG: Okay.
18 And as has been mentioned earlier, there are
l_9 several municipalities, I think it's over 1200,
20 that rely on state the State Police
2t exclusively f or their l-aw enf orcement protection.
22 And. I think in those other states
23 that's not the case. There's a 1ot of local law
24 enforcement Like in Texas you got a pretty
25 strong shbrif f program and so' forth. rm l_ .What f getting to, Co1one1, is the
z question of staffing and staffing the fuI1
3 complement. As I understand it, werre currently
t 2 OO Lroopers below the f u11 complement ; is t,hat
5 correct ?
6 COLONEL MILI-,ER: Actually, when the
7 cadet c1ass, the l- L5th cadet class graduat,es
B April 23rd., 2004, we will be at about 4244. Our
9 total enlisted compliment is 4,040, pJ-us 235.that
L0 are assigned to the Turnpike. And that's an
1l_ augmenta!ion to our budget. So that's 4275, so
T2 we' 11 be at 4 ,24 4 approximately.
13 Now, we do have currently 52 of our t4 personnel, total personnel in military service
15 right now, which does affect us, but I guess my
L6 point is that the Governorrs seen fit to ensure
I7 that our totaL funded complement is maintained at r.B its fu11 capacity l_9 ThereEt, - are stillL I I I some 27 O positions
20 that under the statute we could fill if there
2t were funding to do so. And the Governor has
22 expressed the idea to try to get us as close to
23 that number as soon as we can, given the current
24 fiscal situation.
25 But I rm very encouraged by the fact LB2
1 that the Governor seemed fit to ensure that our . z entire complement is funded.
3 . In reality, where we will be as soon
4 as this class graduates will be right about the
5 highest position that werve'been in the history
6 of the Department.
.7 And we are planning for another
B class in May of approximately 50 cadets. And
9 then at the end of the year, the faI1 werre
10 looking for a class of maybe a hundred that we
LL would put in. t2 We try to we try to forecast
13 ahead based on how many people can'retire and how t4 many
L5 times of the year that we see people leave. So t6 that we can't ever go beyond what werre f und.ed. l7 a't, but it takes us six months t,o train c1ass. l-8 So it,s kind of a tricky situation where we have
19 to have advanced planning, you know, very
20 accurately.
2t REPRESENTATTVE ARMSTRONG: I
22 appreciate that, Colone1. I just encourage you.
23 to I think it's very important that we fund
24 the State Police department at its ful1
25 complement rather than ful1y fund what we have. r-83
L f think both are important, but
z given the.higfr Level of professionaLism and given
3 the amount of services that we as Pennsylvanians
+ rely on from our State Police department, I think
5 it's very important that we fund the fuI1
6 complement. Thank you
7 COIJONEL MI I-,I-rER: Thank you very
I much.
9 CHAIRMAN ARGALI-r: Representative t_0 Wheat 1 ey. l_L REPRESENTATIVE WHEATLEY: ThANK YOU, t2 Mr. Chairman. And good afternoon, Colone1.
13 COLONEL MILI-rER: Good afternoon. t4 REPRESENTATM WHEATLEY: I want to
15 start off by saying I want to echo a lot of what
L6 you heard here f rom our colleagues tod.ay. I rm t7 certainly one who can appreciate the work that
18 your State Troopers have done on the turnpike. I
19 ride it'a 1ot, like many of my colleagues, and I
20 can attest that theyrre out there working hard.
23. COITONEITMILI:ER: Thank you f or the
22 endorsement.
23 A VOICE: Maybe too hard.
24 REPRESENTATTVE WHEATI,EY: BUI A
25 question I have for you goes reaIly to what Irve 184
l_ been asking many of the departments as they come
2 before us these last couple weeks, is what are
3 you and I know the troopers. I rve talked to
4 some of your recruitment officers. I know you've : 5 been working hard to try to increase your
6 *i.ority and women component.
7 But if you could talk to us a litt1e
B bit about some of those effort"s and. how are the
9 numbers? How are they looking for the ne.w class,
10 what that looks like and how are you what are
11 the challenges yourre finding?
t2 Then Irm going to add this and. then
L3 Irm going to be quiet and listen to you. Back in
L4 December of 2003 in Uniontown Irm sure you're'
15 aware of this case with Michael Elerby, .the young
l_5 man, 12 year old who was fleeing and was
t7 accidentally or whatever you want to call it, he
1B was shot by some troopers.
19 And I know t,he investigation went
20 through. None of the troopers involved were
2t found negligent in activity, but from that I want,
22 to know, I probably inquire
23 of f icial writi.g, but I would. like to'work with
24 your department what the proCedures are for z5 engagement and how do you respond, how do you 185
1 evaluate if an engagement was correct and what
2 constitute- endanqerment .
s So if you can speak to those two
4 r_ssues.
5 COLONEL MILI-,ER: AbsoluteIy. I
6 would be happy to.
7 First, on the area of diversity,
B it's one of my biggest areas of emphasis is
9 recruitment on diversity issues.
L0 f bel j-eve very strongly that there
1L should be equal and fair access to all
12 advancement opportunities and training within the
l-3 agency. know my staff feels the same way. And
t4 \are've taken some steps to radically improve our
15 recruitment efforts. As as a way of backdrop
16 here, r j-ght now there are three .very large
t7 classes that came in in the '70s that have enouqh
1B time that they can 1eave, people can leave with a t9 fuLI retirement.
20 And in those three classes, they
2L were large classes of around 2OO troopers. They
22 were 50 percent minority composition. .So the
23 problem that werre facing right now is as
24 individual class members decid.e when they're
25 going to leave and fortunately for us not 186
1 everyone leaves at the same time even with the
2 best possible recruiting efforts werre going Eo
3 be behind the eight-ba11, so to speak, for a
4 little bit in trying to play catch-up
5 I-ret me give you some statistics. In
6 2003 we had 120 cadets graduate from the State
7 Police Academy. 11.6 percent of those were
B f emales, and l-2.5 percent were minorities.
statewid.e, in our enlisted
10 complement, 4,2 percent of our troopers are
LL females, and LO.B5 percent of our troopers are t2 minorities. t-3 Now we want to improve upon those l4 numbers, but I think that the cadet graduation
15 rate numbers that I just showed you there for
16 2003 are a step in the right direction.
L7 My personal goal is for us to be in
1B the area of 15 percent females, and 2O percent
19 minorities as a starting point.
20
2t in addition, I can te11 you that the percentage
22 of commissioned officers within the ranks, in
23 2OO1 the percentage was 10.8 percent minority.
24 2003 that number has now increased to 13.5
25 percent of our commissioned officer ranks. tB7
.l_
2 than an hour f'11 be with the Governor. He
3 accepted my recommendati-on to create a new deputy
4 commissioner position within Ehe Department.
I That would be the Deputy Commissioner of
6 Professional Responsibil ity, to raise the
7 emphasis on t.he complexity and !hu issues B involved in misconduct, preventing misconduct;
9 putting together all of Lhe groups that are und.er
1_0 the umbre11a. The deputy will have the equal
11 employment opportunity office, the Bureau of
t2 Integrity and Professional Standards, the
L3 department discipline office, and the early
14 intervention program office under him.
15 And the individual that is the most
L6 competent, most qualified and the absolute best
77 candidate'bar none for that, position is a
1_B gentleman by the name of ,fohn R. Brown. And he's
19 a major currently, but he will be promoted to
20 l ieutenant colonel . He al- so happens to be an
2t African-American male. And Irm very proud to say
22 that his perspective and the insights' that he
23 will bring to the front office of the State
24 Police are greatly appreciated.
25 In addition, I would say that I did 1BB
1 appoint the first female deputy commissioner in
2 the history of the departmetrt, Lieutenant Colonel
3 Cynthia Transue, who was here earlier but had to
4 leave for another appointment.
D What Irm trying to sdy, sir, we:too
6 take diversity and equal access opportunity very
7 seriously.' And we are working extremely hard so
6 that when we 1eave, whenever that is -- hopefully
9 that.'s years into the f uture but when we
10 leave, the department will be a much more
t_l_ diverse, much better and much equality wi] lbe t2 there. There will be the ability for people to
13 think maybe they could reach a certain point but
L4 to aspire to get to that point.
15 And that's what werre trying to do.
15 And I think wefre making some very significant t7 strides there. l_8 As to your second guestion, about l_9 the tragic shooting case involving Michael
20 Elerby, certainly that is -- that is a tragedy
2I. and we all recognize that. And f can teI1 you
22 through exp.erience and in commanding officers and
23 being in situations where our troopers had to
24 take somebody's life, nobody ever wants to be in
25 that situation. 189
Nobody ever wants to be in that
2 situation; however, we judge an officerfs
3 response. We train our officers to stop the
4 action, and we Eraj-n our officers in line with
5 the Iaw. And the 1aw basically says that if you
6 are in fear of serious bodily injury or death,
7 you're.authorized to take the steps necessary and
exercise the leve1 of force necessary to stop the
9 action. And thatrs basically what our people are
1b trained to do.
Ll_ And I believe in that case the
12 district attorney, coroner, and the other
L3 authorities that examined that, including our l4 internal affaj-rs division, found that in that
15 case, ds tragic as that circumstance was, the
16 troopers that were involved, the trooper that t7 fired. believed after the accidental discharge of l_8 his partner and seeing his partner fall- over the
19 fence that his partner had been shgt. He
20 discharged his service weapon in defense of
21 himself and his partner, thinking that a deadly
22 rnately, that
23 wasnrt the case.
l 24 But I think the stand.ard law is what
25 did that off icer bel ieve at the time and was that 190
1 belief based on a reasonable assumption and
2 ascertation of the facts. And I think that's
3 what happened here.
4 We certainly do not have a history
5 of bad shooting situations, if you wi11. And
6 this one was not a bad shoot, but it was a tragic
7 circumstance. But I think our statistics show
B our use of deadly force within the agency has
9 been used sparingly and only when necessary. And
L0 we are working closely with the State Troopers
l_ i. Association and within the agency to ensure that
t2 we identify any trends associated with use of
13 force, whether it be on a lesser 1eve1, or
t4 whether it be the use of deadly force to ensure
15_ that werre doing everything we can to mitigate
15 and train our personnel properly t7 There's a f ine L ine t,here . In one tB hand you want to make sure that you donrt go over t9 a line and you're not too strong on your use of
20 force, but at the same time I have a
2t responsibility to the 42OO men and women that
22 work for me that they get to go home safely at
23 the end of the day.
24 So there's a fine line there. And
25 werre working very .hard to ensure that ure 191
L we respect the law and we follow it to the
I 2 Ietter.
? REPRESENTATIVE WHEATLEY: Thank you.
4 ' CHAIRMAN ARGAT-rL: Representative
5 Habay
6 REPRESENTATIVE HABAY: Thank you,
7 Mr. Chairman. Colone1, thank you for coming
8 today. And everybody in your organization does a
9 fine j ob. I rm very proud of what you do.
l-0 .I wanted to ask, in your budget
1l_ materials, I was looking through them. You have
t2 a very nobLe goal of decreasing response time for
L3 serious accidents by about 20 percent. I was
14 wondering how specifically you had hoped
15 plan on doing that ?
15 COLONEL MIL,LBR: We1l, one of the
L7 things that I've been able to implement is. a
L8 program we call Problem Specific policing or pSp.
L9. ftrs an accountability policing initiative. It's
20 modeled. after COMSTAT and. what it allows us to do
2L is we use software to map all of our all of
22 our crimes and crash trends. And it's updated
23 automat i cal1y every night . Two in t,he morning
24 the new data comes in.
25 So what werre asking our commanding 192
and our tsroopers to do is to utiLize that data to
z f igure out where the probl ems are occurr j-ng, what
3 time of the day or night they're happening, what
4 day of the week, whaLrs the causal factor
5 involved, and then with laser-1ike precision
6 focus our resources on the root cause of the
7 prob 1 em .
B Because it doesnrt make sense. For
9 years we in the DeparLment wrote a lot of
L0 ci-tations and used that as a measure of
11 perf ormance.. But I dontt believe, nor does my
t2 staf f believe, that a bushel of cit,ations '13 I necessarily means yourre effective. 1-4 What I rm basing our effectiveness on
15 is are the numbers of fatality going d,own, are
.16 the number of crash-related injuries going down?
L7 Are the number of crimes, particularly those
18 quality-of-1ife offenses going down? 19 And since the application of that
20 PSP initiative, welve seen fatal crashes go down
2L 7 .4 percent. Werve seen burglaries go down 9.9
22 percent. Wetve seen motor vehicle thefts go down
23 L3 percent.
24 You know, wetve seen where we had a
25 L3.2 percent increase in fatal crashes last year. 193
1 Now werre going the other direction..
! 2 So we re start ing .to see some very
3 positive signs. And we believe that as we refine
4 this process and as our commanders become more
5 skilled and our personnel understan"d what werre
6 asking them to do, we're going to see even better
7 numbers. To me that's the measure of performance
B in what we're d.oing.
9 REPRESENTATIVE HABAY: Thank you.
L0 The only other question I have is concerning the
1L Departmentrs Bureau of Lj-quor Control
L2 Enforcement. l_3 How'specifically are you working t4 with the problem of underage drinking, which has
15 become a major problem across the CommonweaLth?
16 And what nuances are you working with . now, what
I7 trends are you seeing in underage drinking and l_8 how are you responding to them? :
19 COITONEITM I LLER : .We11 , first and
20 foremost, the PSP initiative that I j ust, t,alked
2L about maps everything. So even, you know,
22 quality of life or nuisance crimes 1 r_Ke unoe rage
23 drinki.g, which have other ramificat ions with
24 regard to traffic crashes, et cetera , what we do
25 is we look dt, f,or instance the DUI, 1f we're 'i- looking at DUI we try to debrief the people that ,2 we arrest to ensure we know where were they
3 served, okay.
4 f can tel1 you there was a case here
5 j ust recently in Troop ,J in Lancasterrs area ,
6 where we had seen a spike in DUI-related
7 fatalities. So using the pSp formula, we looked
8 at what was the root cause here. And what we
found out was there was a bar that was serving
l_0 visibly intoxicated patrons. we wonked. with our
1L Bureau of r,iquor control Enforcement and some of
t2 our undercover personnel to target that location.
1"3 And as a result of that, werve been able to make
1,4 numerous arrests.
L5 But additionally and more
16 importantly, wetve been abl-e to reduce the number
1,7 of .DUr-rel,ated fatalities wiuhin the troop area
18 . by over 5 percent.
19 So that's an example of a quick
20 strike mentality that we can employ based on what
2t the numbers say. ' 22 If we do dispLace crime or something
23 changes we can immediately respond to that.
24 In addition, underage
25 specifically underage drinkirg, we work wit,h a 195
number of groups and associations througl:out the
z Commonwealth. We work with the universities. We
3 try to educate kid.s at al l 1evels . We have a
4 Choices program that we put on numerous programs
5 each year to'try to 1et them know that.there are
6 consequences for the choices you make in life.
7 And even as young adults or as kids in elementary
B school, we have to get to them early to try to
9 educate them on the problems associated with
l_0 . a1coho1, and the fact that alcohol has no no
L1 means whatsoever in a motor vehicle.
L2 And I donrt know if, Colone1 t 13 Periandi, you want to make a couple quick remarks L4 on that.
L5 LfEUTENANT COLONEL PERIANDI: Yes,
16 sir. Good af ternoon. of the' of our mai-n
L7 initiatives, one is the combatting underage
18 drinking on campus and community partnership
19 program that werre right in the middle of a
20 grant, $360,000 grant to combat that to combat
2t the underage drinking pioblem, particularly on
22 college campuses. That werve been very, very
23 successful with that. This is actually the fifth
24 year we've been involved in that
25 Second would be our und.er 2I 195
L hotline, which is rea11y t,he f irst of its kind
z nationwide. ftrs the first statewide hoLline and
3 it's Lhe first nationwide hotline available for
4 individuals to report binge drinking. Sometimes
5 . there's r 1rou know, these underage drink.ing
5 parties that occur that are planned, in high
7 schools.or college settirg, people become aware
,8 of them and they can report it anonymously to us.
9 And that's a 24/7 operation which allows us then
10 to respond to those particular kind of events.
l_1 And then as the Colonel's indicated,
12 werre we concentrate very heavily on
13 furnishing area also to attack the problem at the
l4 root , those individual s who j ust r 1roll know ,
L5 completely are oblivious to the Laws relative to
15 serv j-ng and f urni shing individual s under 2l .
t7 REPRESENTATM HABAY: Thank you
18 very much., Keep up the great work.
19 CHAIRMAN ARGALIJ : Representative
20 Melio.
2t REPRESENTATTVE MELIO: Thank you,
22 Mr. Chairman. ColoneL Miller,.the last time I
23 was at the acad.emy f looked at a patrol vehicle
24 and they had some real high-tech equipment. That
25 wasntt in all the vehicles. Are they now in all L97
t- the vehicle.s?
2 COLONEL MfLLER: yes. All of our
3 marked^ patrol vehicles have the mobile office
.4 employed, which allows the trooper to be much
more efficient in that he or she ha.s the ability
6 right at.their fingertips to access information
7 without having to go through the dispatch
8 environment, which can be cumbersome at times.
9 Because if a 1ot of people are trying to
t0 communicate with the desk, the dispatch area, or
11 if therers an incident that's occurring, maybe a
t2 multivehicle fatality, the desk person is rea11y
L3 tie.d up. So the trooper then has to def er some
t4 of the vehicle registration checks that he or she
15 might want to employ.
16 So with the mobile office they don,t
L7 ever have to do t,hat. So we could recover stolen
1B vehicles. It's all geared to make the officer
19 out on the street more effective by allowing he
20 or she to have the ability to be innovative in
2t how they address enforcement and have right at
22 their fingertips access to information.
23 REPRESENTATIVE MELIO: That was a
24 very impressive system. The other question
25 have, I have a road rage bill in the 198
1 transportation committee, and the companion is a
2 road rage hotline where they woul-d call the State
3 Police.
4 Could you support" that?
5 COLONEL MI LI-,ER: Sure . I think that
6 we wouJd support that. We have a number of
7 things right now that the coloneL det,ailed, the
B underage hotline, we have the terrorism Uip
9 hotline that we receive tips on. And something
l_0 like 'this would be akin t,o that. ' l-1 Obviously right now we have we
t2. dispatch from all of our facilities, but we,re o 13 going to go to the Consolidated Dispatch t4 Environment. When that happens, that - - your
L5 plan would. interact and integrate very welI with
L5 the CDE concept, which is the Consolidated.
t7 DispaEch Environment, where instead of
L8 dispatching 81 facilities we,re going to
L9 dispatch from 5 . And when we do that, call would
20 come in. Could be routed and could be easily
2l handled and we could we could notify our
22 people but we could also notify the local police
23 if they were involved, if it was an area that
24 they covered.
25 RE PRE S ENTAT I VE MEIJIO Good. Thank 199
1 you very much, Mr. Cha j-rman.
z CHAI RMAN ARGALL : Representative
Cappel-1i.
4 REPRESENTATIVE CAPPEITITI: Thank you,
5 Mr. Chairman. Mr. Mil1er and your staff,
6 welcome. Itrs nice to see you. I commend you
7 for your leadership. Keep up the great work.
U Specifically, f 'd like to commend
a your investigative staff stationed aL the Troop.F
L0 in Montoursville for the superb work they've done
l_ l_ in the community in helping to produce a first
t2 d.egree murder conviction of a highly publicized.
L.3 homicide had it not been for the extraordinary
efforts to which they went
15 COLONEL MILLER: Thank you.. And
15 that was an extraord,inary j ob that they did. We
1'7 ap'preciate your comments.
18 REPRESENTATIVE CAPPELLI: Never
19 would have made it to triaI. So I commend you
20 and your personneL.
2t I have nou so much a fiscal quest,ion
22 but f guess a policy quest ion to pose to you.
23 And it's one that I think many in this town, in
24 the hal1s of this capitol, have considered to be
25 somewhat proprietary with respect to the State 200
l_ Police for many, many years, and thatrs speed
2 controL and the use of modern technology r tddar,
3 radar by nonenforcement elements other than the
4 State Pol-ice.
5 I rm cur j-ous, in l ight of so many
o wonderful programs, ds a former Mayor of
7 Williamsport I saw the effects of j oint.
B saturation patrols, warrant suspic'ious
9 interdepartmental narcotics work by elements of
L0 your agency and our police department, the
Ll_ Attorney Generalrs office combining resources to
l2 improve public safety and reduce crime.
13 Does the Department have an
14 administrative position on the use of that type l_5 of speed'timing technology beyond your ranks?
16 COLONEIT MILLER: Yes, we do. We t7 support the use of rad.ar by ltcaI police. In
1B fact, w€ worked very closely with the
19 Pennsylvania chiefs o,f Police Association on that
20 very issue to try to develop a piece of
2L Iegislation that will be appropriate under the
22 circumstances and would provide local law
23 enforcement with access to a very important too1.
24 Because particularly when you're talking about
25 school zones or other areas where itrs very 20L
difficult to use speed strips, it also requires
z more resources. And many times 1oc.a1 police
5 deparLments don' t have those resources available
4 or to tie up the vast maj ority of their resources
5 to try to solve the problem in a school zone is
6 not necessary if you employ technology. That
7 technology would. be radar or LIDAR to use. That
I would require one officer and require the officer
9 maybe not to put their lives at risk, so Lo
10 speak, in trying to gather the speed information.
11 So y€s, we supp that. We believe
t2 it is a tool. f think the legislation that's I l_3 been proposed has a number of safeguards .within l4 it that would satisfrz concerns Chat some of the
15 General Assembly might harbor with regard Uo the
T6 fair and. safe application of that technology.
t7 But I believe the sunset date and everything else
1B that,'s j-n there and the revenue restrictions, I
L9 think that it's pretty clear that the tool would
20 be used. for what it's int,ended, dnd, that is to
2t save lives.
22 REPRESENTATIVE CAPPELLI : Thank you,
23 Colonel Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
24 CHAIRMAN ARGAI-rI-r: Representative
25 Manderino. 202
l- . REPRESENTATM MANDERINO: Thank
z you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, CoLonel
5 MilLer. Itrs good to see you.
.+ COLONEL MILLER: Good Lo see you.
5 REPRESENTATIVEnnhbndF MANDERINO: This I €, isnrtlreally a question. f 'm sorry. f had
7 another meeting and I missed your presentation.
And I understand some questions'were already
9 asked about, this, so I just want to make a brief
1o statement to encourage you to continue to take
11 very seriously and investigate very thoroughly
t2 .the allegations of sexual misconduct within the
1,3 d.epartment. I think it puts a black eye on all
of us and particularly aL1 the good men and women .14 15 who are your officers to not take the things like
16 that seriously. And so f appreciate your
l7 attention to that
18 My question goes to the pIrCE and the
19 liquor control enforcement officers, which is the
20 aspect, of the St,ate Police that f d.eal .with the
2t most, being from an urban area.
22 And again, I commend Lhe work of
23 those of f i cers . They d.o a hard j ob and I know
24 they are very diligent about what they do.
25 And I noticed that therers a 4 203
1 percent increase in thal line item. And I was
2 wondering what that's for, if therers going to be
3 any addi.tional personnel. I think,'if Irm
q remembering correctly, last year we there was
5 d.iscussion, whether at this committee or in the
6 judiciary committee, about thinking about how
7 they're deployed versus where the problem areas
B are and whet,her or not any redeployment of
9 personnel has happened, and if you have any
10 statistics to report about how those things are
11 happening in southeastern Pennsylvania. t2 And then before you answer my last
13 comment and then I'11 relinquish the mic, when
1-4 the Chairman of the IJCB was here yesterday, we
L5 talked a littIe bit about the coordination l_6 between the TJCB and the LCE so that the t7 enforcement stuff and the nui-sance bar and all of
L8 those things can be coordinated. And I just
19 would like to encourage that we sit down together
20 and' figure out ways, even though werre two
2I different deparLmenLs, that we can coordinate a
22 1ittle more closely to make sure werre being as
23 effective as possible. Thank you.
24 .COLONEL MI I-,I-,ER: Okay . Thank. you
25 very much. And when you weren't here, 204
1 Representative Evans had a similar question. We : 2 talked a 1itt,Ie bit about that. ;
3 To answer your question, first of
4 a1"1 , the line item increase in the budget f or
5 liquor control enforcement is related
specifically to benefits. The number of
7 personnel, 255, remain st,atic. Our operations
B wonrt change.
9 Specifically to southeastern
10 Pennsylvania, within the Philadelphia District
l_ l_ Of f ice we hav.e 31 enf orcement'personnel there.
t2 The breakdown of personnel is roughly 1B percent
13 of our total complement of enforcement officers,
L4 which corresponds to 1B percent. of the licensees
15 within the Commonwealth. In other word.s, the
L6 licensed establishment, L8 percent of them are
I7 within the City of Philadelphia.
l-8 , So we try to do it that way. ThaL's
19 how we deploy the resources. fn that office
20 there are.3 1. Of the 31, I beli'eve a third, 10,
2T 1O of.those enforcementr Dersonnel are minorities.
22 Thatrs in the area that we!ve realIy tried to -try 23 push to to recruit, because obviously some of
24 the licensed. establishments, as yourre aware in
25 the area, w€ aren't as successful if we donrt 205
I have a diverse work force to be able to attack
2 problems and issues and speakeasies in that area
3 CHAfRMAN ARGALL: Representative
4 McGi11. l 5 REPRESENTATIVE MCGILL: Thank you
6 very much, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon.
7 COLONEL MI LI-,ER : Good a f t ernoon .
8 REPRESENTATM MCGILI-r: For the
9 record, you.made my day. I have at least a half
L0 a dozen police chiefs that said that to me b.efore
11 I came'out here, knowing I was going to talk to
L2 you, Where's our radar bill? So wefre thril1ed.
13 GLad to hear the department is in agreement. t_4 We as long as you're in agreement, werll come
L5 up with something where we can work the
L6 Iegislation through. that's absolutely
L7 terrific. And I can go home again.
18 There's a House Bill l-LL4 that's the l-9 National Crime Prevention Privacy Compact. I
20 believe your department has been in contact with
2t Representative Weber, I believe itrs her piece of
22 legislat,ion, and. back and f orth.
23 Can you teIl us where you stand on
24 ,that ? I s that something that the department is
25 going to welcome? Is it something you don't 206
L want? I know you addressed earlier the situation
,z where you would lose fundi.g, and r don't believe
3 this particular piece of legislation impacts the
.t funding of the criminal background checks thaE
5 6 is that larger compact with the states where we'd 7 be able to fo11ow-up on information of, letrs say B somebody in .Tersey or New York, w€ want to f ind out whether they should be a teacher or not. 10 COLONEIJ MI LLER : I th j.nk, 1L Representative we can follow-up with you on t2 this -- but I think my understanding is that as L3 it's written now, it wouLd potentially would L4 impact our ability to charge for certain criminal 15 history record requests, which we need to do to 16 support the personnel and. infrastructure to I7 actually do those checks. That's my 1B understanding. L9 REPRESENTATIVE MCGII,L : Because I 20 think that maybe we can pu11. a couple people 2l together then, and actually the minds that write 22 those things can actually do that, because there 23 are there seems to be a difference there and 24 werd like to get that resol-ved., because it seems 25 like a great idea to be able to utilize that. 207 L COLONEL MILLER: We suPPorL the z concept and we would welcome' the opportunity to 3 work with you or with anyone who's willing to do 4 that 5 REPRESENTATM MCGILL: That's 6 terrific. I thank you for that. The oEher area, 7 a I-,IVESCAN, and you had touched on LMSCAN. Our B DA is pretEy adamant that we use LIVESCAN and' 9 rightfully so. So the question comes.up, and 10 again it's a technical one and, I heard earlier 11 that you're moving the Department forward with J,2 computerization and changes. I 13 Apparently there was a changeover in L4 .or an upgrade in the hardware that now on 15 IJMSCAN not only does the fingerprinting but : 16 a l so doe s palms . And there I s a conce.rn wi Lh your L7 department that the equipment that several of the 1B municipalities down in the Southeastern' 19 Pennsylvania went together in various areas to 20 come up and say we'11 have one police department 2t do the IJIVESCAN f or f our departments. And 22 several of them went together, and apparently 23 theyrre real concerned now that the piece of 24 equipment, the hardware that they are purchasing 25 is not in conjunction with what your computers 208 are capable of accepting. And this is a problem. But you know, hearing the I rm 3 assuming that this will be resol-ved. 4 COLONEL MILLER : We1 1 , first of a1 1, 5 Iet me say thatr 1rou know, we would be happy to 6 work with any municipality police agency thatrs 7 having a problem there. We can cerLainly lend B some technical expertise to assist in getting 9 over that problem. t0 One of the things werre trying to do L1 wi th the AFI S upgrad.e i s go to the palm-print t2 technology, be able to do that. 13 . So part of the monies that are s.et t4 aside are for us to be able to expand to include L5 the ability to get electronically palm prints 15 transmitted to the central repository. t7 REPRESENTATIVE MCGILL: A11 right. l_B thatts another one. That's great, thank you. l-9 We passed an omnibus transportation 20 bill -- I canrt even remember when we did it a 2t year or two, two years ago that.said you're not 22 all-owed., to drive in the 1ef t, -hand. 1ane, driving 23 in the left-hand lane you can get a ticket. 68 24 cars today on the Pennsylvania Turnpike were 25 sitting in the left-hand lane for no apparent 209 reason 2 COL,ONEL MII-,I-rER: I think they were J all behind Representative Wheatley who was 4 driving. 5 REPRESENTATIVE MCGILI-,: He's coming the other direction. But I can appreciate the 7 speeding tickets, but if a couple of these guys B could ro11 along and just puI1 these morons off 9 the road, it would be wond.erful and rea11y be a 10 safety i ssue L.1 COLONEL MILLER: We are we are . T2 stressing .that. The problem becomes that in some 13 areas the congestion is such that we canrt t4 sustain a conviction, because of the fact that L5 the traffic condit,ions were such that individuals L6 maybe canrt move over to the other lane. And 1,7 itts a tough one f or D.J's 1B REPRESENTATIVE MCGILL: I think you l_9 couId have today. f had at Jeast a mile of open 20 space between several of the trucks. 2t And one final note, I scan --. f scan 22 aIl the time IocaI newspapers to get headlines. 23 And am I dreaming or is it 24 Interstate B3 between Harrisburg and the MaryL and 25 border extremely dangerous? CouId that possibly 2\O be a targeted enforcement area? I think there 2 were. -- there were two fatals last week. There 3 were -- f go through the papers. Itrs always 4 Interstate B3 between Maryland and Harrisburg 5 which it seems to be a deathtrap area. : 6 COIJONEL Mf LLTER: Let me address that 7 first. I'11 say on your last point, signage 8 would probably be helpful to some degree to make 9 people aware of the fact that you're not allowed 10 to drive in the left-hand unless passing. 1L Secondly, werre working very hard t2 to -- through funding and budget and also o 13 forfeiture funds that we have been able to use to L4 get mobil-e vid.eo recorders in' all of our patrol 15 cars. l_6 That will help us prove some of the L7 violati-ons such as that,. t_8 Now on the 83 issue, the PSP t_9 initiative identifies' for us where the problems. 20 are occurring. We are wel 1 aware that werve had 2t some issues occur on I-83. 22 We are working on those issues, 23 because we hold the command.ers accountable for 24 results with regard to where werre seeing trends 25 Obviously we had a crash the other 2tL 1 day. And I know there was a crash. Appears as .2 though the commercial vehicle operator was tired 3 or may have fallen asleep, didn't recognize Lhe 4 hazards ahead and did not slow up and ran over 5 another vehi'c1e. 6 Those are things that when we Lrave 7 construction zone work we try to work with the B contractor through PennDOT. ' We put cars, rldrked 9 cars with lights at the start of the queue, l_0 because we realize thatts the way we have to slow 1l_ people down before you get into a situation where 1,2 we have f aLalities. But we are -:- werre not just 13 looking at one area I4 N.ow with the technology that werre 15 employing in our mapping module, wetre able to l_6 see where where the crashes are occurring t7 st,atewide. So where the problems are, thatrs 1B where we need to focus our attention and thatts 19 what wetre trying to accomplish and identify the 20 root cause. 2t REPRESENTATIVE MCGTLI-,: Thank you. 22 And my time is up, but you know my position on z3 having every trooper have a police car of their 24 own. I see your re buying 5 0 0 thi s ye ar I wish 25 you were buying a thousand. Thank you . 2]-2 1 CHAIRMAN ARGALL: Representative 2 Da1 1y . 3 REPRESENTATIVE DAI-,LY: Thank you, 4 Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, Colone1. 5 COLONEL Mf I-,I.,ER: Good af ternoon. 6 REPRESENTATIVE' DALLY: HOW ATe YOU? 7 COT,ONEL MI LLER : Good I EPRESENTATM DALLY: In the 9 narrat j-ve procedure of your budget proposal you L0 mentioned the different goals of.the Department L1_ Ehrough 2O04. And one thing that was there would L2 be increasing your DNA capabilities in fighting 13 crLme t4 The House Republican caucus is in 15 the midst of an initiative to expand the use of L5 DNA in 1aw enforcement. And. specifically I have. t7 a bill that would. lessen the standard to seek out 18 DNA in other nontestimonial identification 19 evidence in the process of investigations. 20 And I'd like to know what your 2t feeling is in terms of expanding the use of DNA 22 since we. have the science and it I s such a 23 poyerf u] tooL, whether we shoul-d be doing more of 24 ir. 25 COLONEI-, MILLER: Oh, I absolutely 2t3 1 agree that we should be d.oing more of it. I 2 think that over the past few years yourve seen J rea1ly an explosion of the use of DNA technology. 4 And'we in the State Police, not only do we have 5 one the of the foremost experts in the counEry, 6 Christine Tomsey, running our laboraLory in 7 Greensburg, but we also are the only accredited o laboratory j-n the Commonwealth. And we are 9 employing a number of technologi€s, robotics to 10 try to assist us in being able to keep the 11 backlog at a manageable 1eve1. In addition, l2 werre using outsourcing when we can. r.3 We encourage people to use DNA 14 technology. Werre using currently right now 15 within.our labs the most advanced DNA technology 16 avaifable. And the number of criterion Ehat we l7 check exceed.s what the fed.eral government or the 18 FBI requires. 19 So I think werre somewhere in the 20 neighborhood of 15, 16 characteristics. And they 2t require 13 r I be1 ieve . 22 So werre very much involved in that. 23 We have supported previous legislation and 24 expanded the convicted offender database to 25 incLude felonies such as burglary and robbery, 214 1 and we would support the expansion uo include all 2 felonies 3 REPRESENTATIVE DALI-TY: I know 4 dealing with the backlog in your lab is always a challenge. 6 Do. you know how many cases were 7 processed last year through your department, what B the current backlog is? g COLONEL MILLER: On DNA cases? l-0 REPRESENTATIVE DALIJY: YCS. : COLONEL MILLER: DNA cases Ll_ " t t2 investigative cases, the backlog right now is 65 13 cases. We processed several hundred cases. I L4 don't have the exact figure -- y€s, I do. 15 The cases received last year were 16 906. And we have a 65 cold case. history. We t7 also have 65 case backlog. And that's been L8 pretty consistent over the past few years that 19 werve been able to keep it there. Werve been 20 using.overtime where we can and. trying to be. as 21 good as we possibly can with robotics to get 22 k.eep it under control 23 But we have seen an increase in 24 cases . comj.ng in. So werve been working real hard 25 to kind of stem the tide now. 215 REPRESENTATIVE DAI-,LY: NOW I 2 listed it wasnrt listed as a goal for 2004. 3 How does your current budget request address the 4 DNA workload in your labs at present and 5 prospect ively? o COLONEL MII-,LER: We11, currently, 7 like I said, the one thing thatts been thatrs 8 been hugely helpful is the application of robotic 9 technology. For instance, Irve been out to 10 Greensburg 1ab. And I would. encourage you to get 11 an interest in that. If you get out, to t2 Westmoreland County v/e can arrange a tour for 13 you. l4 The robotics in place there will 15 a1low us to test 24' hours a day. Werre hopeful 1_6 we can pick up about three more robotics units. t7 f donrt know that we have funding specifi^ca1Iy 18 earmarked within this budget to a11ow us to do 19 that, but werre always on the look-ouE for any 20 rederal oppo':"::r::".;":',1",:"::," 2L ro so and 22 collect the offender data from all felonies, that 23 would. d.oubl-e what we receive now tro 40, OOO. Then 24 we would probably need the robotics for bure, and 25 potentially about seven positions to ensure that 21,6 we could keep up with the requirements. 2 We have 1.6 million that supports 3 our DNA 1ab, and 1.2 million addit j-onal that we + are going to apply to this process to try to make 5 it more effective. 6 REPRESENTATM DALLY: Yeah, if the 7 General Assembly were to agree and the Governor B were to agree also to an expansion of DNA, use of 9 DNA evid.ence in criminal cases, and. we were able l_0 to find some additional funds to do so, your Ll_ ageircy would be amenable to performing that t2 additional work? 13 COLONEL MILLER: Absolutely. L4 REPRESENTATIVE DAIJITY: Okay. Thank 15 you. l_5 CHAIRMAN ARGAI-,I-r: Representative ]-'t S chrode r l_B REPRESENTATIVE SCHRODER: Thank you, L9 Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, Colonel Mi11er. 20 COLONEIT MILLER: Good af ternoon. REPRESENTATIVE SCHRODER: It's my 22 understanding that Pennsylvania Coalition .Against 23 Domestic Violence maintains a comprehensi-ve 24 database of al l protect,ion f rom abuse orders that 25 are issued. in the Commonwealth, and at the same 2r7 l_ time the Pennsylvania State Police maintains a jr_1... 2 completely separate PFA registry 3 Now, it is also my understanding 4 that the State Poli-ce have resisted efforts and 5 suggestions t,o integrate these two databases. 6 Am I accurate on that? And if so, 7 why is that the case? I COLONE I-.,M f l-rI-rER: No, Do, you t re not . 9 Irve actually met personally with the l_0 Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic VioIence, L1 and we have ongoing meetings. In fact, what 1,2 \,'/erre doing now, we I re in the process of working 13 with them to integrate the two systems. The systems that we ma j-ntain, werre 15 mandated by statute to employ. So we are L6 required by Iaw to have a database that has all t7 the PFA's in it. And we incorporate every day 18 PFA's that'.come out of prothonotary of f ices into 19 the database 20 Werre wetre very impressed with 2L what PCADB has d.one, and werre looking to make 22 sure that we can integrate that into our.system. 23 There's a number of side issues that we have to 24 work through, some 1egal issu€s, et cetera. But 25 werve told them, I know Irve told them 2tB l- personal ly, I . support what theyrve d'one . And I 'working 2 know I have a work group that ' s actual ly 3 with.them to implement that as we speak. ' ,S 4 REPRESENTATIVE SCHRODER:. SO iI 5 accurate to say you do supporE the concept of 6 integrat ion '7 COLONEL MILLER: Yes. I REPRESENTATfVE SCHRODER: and are 9 trying t.o get that to that Point L0 : COIJONEL MILLER: Yes, w€ are. 11 REPRESENTATIVE SCHRODER: this L2 process, Under Lhe current siUuation, is there a 13 delay between the time a protection from abuse is 'the t4 listed in coalition's database and the time 1-5 it gets Eo the SEate Police registry? Do you l_6 know ? t7 coIroNEIJ MILLER: W611, it doesnrt LB come from the coalitionts database. 19 REPRESENTATIVE SCHRODER: I '. 20 understand. 2t COLONEL MfIJIJER: In t'he 1aw, 22 basically, I believe Lhat the prothonotary has 24 23 hours to get the PFA order to the State Police, 24 and'the'State Police has eight hours to put Lhe 25 order in to the database. More often than not, 279 we receive those PFA orders more rapidly than a z 24-hour turnaround. We get them into the system 3 'quicker than an eight-hour turnaround. 4 REPRESENTATM SCHRODER: So you 5 believe you get them in there quicker or at least 6 as quickly as the coalition's d.atabase, is that 7 your understanding? -B COLONEL MI LLER : I.'m not sure exactly how quickly they get them in. All I know 10 is that werre required by law to do it within l_ t_ those time perimeters and we iomply with the 1aw. 1,2 And we always try to exceed that wherever we can. l-3 And just to state for the record that our 1,4 anticipation is th3t we'11 be able to bring the 1-5 coalitionrs database and integrate with ours 16 about ,January ,January 1st, 2OO6 L7 REPRESENTATIVE SCHRODER: So that's 1B the target date at this point? 19 COI-,ONEIJ MILLER:. IU is the target 20 date. 2t REPRESENTATIVE SCHRODER:,January 1, 22 2006. 23 COLONEL MILLTER: Yes, sir. 24 REPRESENTATIVE SCHRODER: Okay. And 25 you stated., f believe, that you received the 220 PFA's directly from the county prothonotary; is 2 that correct ? 3 COLONEL MILLER: Yes . 4 REPRESENTATIVE SCHRODER : And they 5 have 24 hours to get it to you. And it.takes 6 generally how long to appear on the register. 7 COLONEL MILLER: The Iongest is eight hours to put it in the system. And.what 9 said was we try to exceed that. So many times 10 prothonotaries get it to us well in advance of 11 the 24-hour limi't that theyr re allowed by the l2 1aw. And then we immediately -put it, into the r_3 database. And so sometimes the turnaround time T4 is much, much lesser. L5 REPRE S ENTAT I VE SCHRODER: Thank you 16 very much, Mr. chairman. L? CHAI RMAN ARGAI-rL : Representative t8 Stern L9 REPRESENTATIVE STERN: Good 20 afternoon, Colonel Mi11er. 21, COLONEL MILLER: Good afternoon, 22 Representative. 23 REPRESENTATTVE STERN: In prior.. 24 budgets your predecessor appeared before the 25 committee and you were here as weI1. This is 22t L more of a regional question. There was a hoLe in 2 coverage of State Police coverage with the 3 helicopter unit, €specially in the southern tier. 4 And in prior budgets, we had be inserted. some 5 monies to make sure that there woul-d be a unit 6 implemented and put into the Blair County airport 7 working with Senator Jubel irer and mysel f and B Commissioner Evanko and yourself we ended up 9 making sure the money was put together. 10 Can you give a status as to where l-1 that construction project is currently? And. how L2 soon.do you see that unit being able to open and 1_3 take effect so we can provide the coverage needed. 14 by the State PoIice in the southern tier? 15 COLONEL MII,LER: And that's a very 15 good point. And as soon as possible, Ers f ar as I7 Irm concerned, because Bedford, Fulton, and L8 SomerseL, County are the counties that are most l_9 effecte.d by the fact the geographics of the 20 region as you understand and the way we have to 2t f1y, puts some constraints on us, 22 So basically the upd.ate right now is 23 the Altoona APU proposal was accepted And. i t 24 was sent to the Bureau of Real Estate . So werre 25 hoping that we can move this project along very 222 rapidly. i 2 REPRESENTATIVB STERN: Okay. On one 3 f i-na1 note, r notice over the period of the past .4 year thats you werenrt getting a 1ot of favorable 5 coverage with the pennsylvania state police by 6 some of the editorial writers around the 7 commonweart,h of penneylvania. r just wanEed to i I share a personal story wit,h you as commissioner 9 of the State police. 10 Two weeks ago f was going home from l_1 Harrisburg. I was with my mother. I I m one of t2 the representatives that drives my own pe rs onal l_3 car. I donrt take a state-leased car. I broke t4 down in I-,ewistown narrows. And f just want. to 15 commend one of your state troopers, Trooper L5 Bradley Byler, who stopped by and made sure that t7 my 77-year-o1d mother and r were well-taken care t8 of. And he came around periodically to make sure 19 that we got. the car. And if you. know what that's 20 n both sides, 2t zooming: 22 And I don,t think my moth€r ! s 23 wi 11ing to come Uo Harr j-sburg with me any time ,24 soon because of that two and a half hours we sat 25 there. But Trooper Byler was above and beyond 223 1 the call of duty. He comforted not only myself , 2 but my mother. o"3 I wanted. to commend that J Pennsylvania State Police for that, for that 4 action Thank you. 5 COLONEL MII-rI-rER: Thank you f or your e c omment s and we'11 make sure that Trooper Byler 7 gets that feedback. And I get a lot of letters I 1 ike thaE from the public. 9 And I have the luxury of being 10 command.er of one of the finest organizations in l_1 the cor.intry. And it ' s made up of people L ike t2 that that are.out there just getting the job done 13 every day. ffm reaIly, really proud of their L4 efforts:. Thank you. L5 IO personal note to him. And I also sent a letter t7 to you. just publicly you f wanted to thank 1B trooay . l_9 COI-,ONEL MI LLER : Thank you . 20 CHAIRMAN ARGALL: Final question, 2a Representative Barrar. ' 22 RE PRES ENTAT M BARRAR : Thank you , 23 Mr. Chairman. CoIonel, has there been a change 24 in policy regarding people bringing alcoholic 25 beverage across the sLate line, like from 224 1 Delaware j.nto Pennsylvania? Are.we doing more 2 checks on people who bring alcoholic beverage 3 across state line there. 4 COLONEL MILLER: WeIre not doing 5 more checks. Werve done number of border .o 'patrols in 2003. The number was approximately 7 consistent with what we'd done in 2002, 2001. . B Therers a number of arrests that were mad.e, citations issued and alcohol seized. .9 l_0 Obviously -- I think f have the information here, 11 2003. We did 50 border patrols, operations. t2 2OO2 we did 48. So werre very close to what we l_3 did previously. -We l4 were a little bit more successful L5 in seizing wine. We seized more wine this year, 16 318 l itter, versus only 5 9 . 5 .Last year. So maybe T7 can te11 you a littIe bit about trends. LB But our job is reaIly to the 19 people that are blatantly ignoring the l-aw are 20 the people that are depriving the Commonwealth of 21 tax revenue or people that are bringing aLcohol 22 in to resale. 23 REPRESENTATIVE BARRAR: I guess my 24 concern is if someonels d.riving across the 25 Delaware border into Pennsylvania with a 225 1 refrigerator in the back of their pickup truck 2 and a State Trooper sees it therers no attempt to J stop him and make him pay, an attempt to the get 4 the sales tax on that, but we have a policy of 5 going after Pennsylvania consumers who buy 6 alcoholic beverage in Delaware. 7 COLONEL MILLER: A11 I can teII you, 8 sir, we fo11ow the 1aw. And basically if the law 9 says that j-t's i11ega1 to transport alcohol 10 across the state line for that purpose, to evade 11 tax, and werre you know, werre in a position L2 where h"""r:;,.;t.;::":","; Y" l_3 Assembly would 1,4 amend the law or change it and make it 1ega1 for L5 people to do that, it certainly we woul-dnrt 16 be we would.nrt be taking those enf orcement t7 act ions . 18 REPRESENTATM BARRAR: I gluess my 19 concern is I live down on the Delaware border 20 where Interstate 95 comes in to Pennsylvania. 2t Therers a Lraf f ic accident i-n that 22 area. Because Upper Chichester and Lower 23 Chichester both have their own police department, 24 there ' s no response f rom the S_tate Pol ice in 25 doing traffic control, writing up the accident on 226 1 a state highway. 2 But we have enough troopers 3 available to have them sitting in parking lots as 4 spot,ters and then also in the same area they'11 5 respond to someone buying alcoholic beverage and 6 bringing it across the boarder, but if there's'a 7 traffic accident in that area that the State B Police dontt respond 9 And I take a lot of heat from my 10 local residents, from my loca1 township l- t_ commissioners because they our police are l2 constantly tied up on Interstate 95, but we have 13 the the manpower to go after honest consumers. l4 COLONEL Mf LLER: We1l,, two dif f erent 15 things you're talking about there. t6 Number on.e, we do patrol I - 95. t'7 There is an area that we are so1e1y responsible 1B for and we patrol that area every day. 19 Secondly, if a local police 20 department requests assistance or requires 2L expertise or collision accident reconstruction or 22 any assistance at all from the Pennsylvania State 23 PoIice, alL they have to do is ask. We'11 be 24 right there. 25 ThirdIy, yourre confusing troopers 227 .,o t_ with liquor enforcement officers. If we get a 2 complaint from the public that something's 3 occurring at a particular location as I said, .r we have thousands of them last vear we have,to 5 investigate them. And many times the 6 investigation of those liquor offenses is done by 7 youf re Bureau of Iriquor Control Enf orcement which 8 would be by. our Liquor Control Officers versus 9 taking a uniformed. member of the department and 10 giving them the function to investigate that ' L1 So I think you might be confusing or \2 maybe'the people that you're talking to are 13 confusing the uniformed troopers out on patrol 14 and the liquor enforcemenL officers that are l-5 responding to liquor complaints. ' r.6 REPRESENTATIVE BARRAR: How many 1,7 officer.s do we have in the State Police commi-tted L8 to the liquor enforcement? 19 . COIJONEL MII-,LrER: 255 '20 REPRESENTATfVE BARRAR: Statewide? 2L COLONEL MILLTER: Statewide. 22 REPRESENTATM BARRAR: Thank you. 23 That's all f have, Mr. Chairman 24 CHAIRMAN ARGAI-rL: Thank you very 25 much. We now turn to the Department of PubIic 228 l_ Welfare. , Wer1l take a break for a minute or two I 2 (e recess was taken. ) 3 CHAI RMAN ARGAI-,L: We .re turn t o I .4 wish it worked like that in caucus meeting. 5 ' We turn now to the Department of 6 Public Welfare. Before I introduce Secretary 7 Richman, I should introduce secret,ary yeah, 8 secretary - - it has been a long day' - - 9 Representative George Kenney, chairman of the 10 House Health and Human Services Committee. 11 Welcome, George. 1,2 Madam Secretary, please begin. L3 SECRETARY RICHMAN: Mr. .Chairman, 1-4 thank you for inviting us here today. And Irve t-5 been asked to eliminate the statement in interest L.6 of time, and f would be very glad, to do that. t7 CHAIRMAN ARGALL: The nursing home 18 as.sessment issue is one that we spent a long time L9 on last year. I suspect you probably spent even 20 more time on it than I did. Irm to1d. that werre 2L encogntering some difficulty with the federal 22 approval process, and Irm curious as to what, your 23 crystal ball looks like on that front. I 24 : SECRETARY RICHMAN: I have to admit 25 that the crystal ball gets very cloudy at times. 229 L And on any given day, I sort of look at my staff, o 2 primarily my deputy secretary for medical 3 assistance, and say is the thumbs up or thumbs 4 d.own t oday . 5 It been . has a fairly rocky road. We 6 are stil1 on the clock and stil1 working with CMS 7 around the nursing home assessment. They are 8 they are reviewing requests from several states .9 at this point. One state has reached an 10 agreement with them. And they have invited many L1 of the states, including Pennsylvania, into t2 negotiations. 13 And that's where we are. today. We 14 do not f,..r" a negative response for them, and 15 they're very willing to work with us and J-O understand our issues and needs. t7 We, in turn, though, need to work 1B hand.- in- hand with you and with the providers with l_9 this as.we continue to proceed. There will have 20 to be some changes in our request and as we work. 2t At this point the dialogue is open. 22 The picture today, .the crystal ball 23 looks like very promising, that we will reach a o 24 mutually agreeable compromise or resolution with 25' them and one that we feel that both your 230 L partnership and that of the providers will help z us get to fruition. 3 But unfortunately it is a reading of 4 a crystal ba11. But we do not feel that it's 5 quite time yet to bring out a Plan B, and that we 6 remain optimistic that werre going to get to the 7 end of this and get our major requests met. 8 CHAIRMAN ARGALL: f know I tend to 9 be,,I guess by nature, an optimist, but the l_0 number crunchers on the committee staff kept 1L asking about Plan B, Plan B, because f guess L2 werre talking about what, upwards of almost 150 o 13 million in each year. So that would leave a t4 serious gaping hole in our budget, not just 15 yours. t6 SECRETARY RfCHMAN: That's right. L7 It would leave a serious hole in the budget, 18 which we'ro,-lfa then have to work very cl-oseIy, l-9 both of us, with the budget director to deEermine 20 how we best fill it, and whether that would be no 2L increase or whether that woul-d be a decrease or 22 whether that would be changing.some oLher f.actor 23 within DPW to meet that chal-1enge. 24 And as I said, we havenrt gone there 25 quite yet, because we remain we have enough 23t 1 reason to remain optimistic t,hat we think we I 2 can we can close this gap at this point. But 3 this is one that doesn,t get.off the highest 4 priority list obviously. It is a serious problem 5 if it d.oesnrt happen. 6 So we are engaged not only with 7 ourselves in this conversation in talking.tb the industryr w€ also have the lobbyists in '' 9 Washington and other folks working with us in 1_0 constant contact around. this issue. l_L CHAIRMAN ARGALL: Is there t2 considerable potential that many nursing homes L3 could be negatively impacted as a result of this? a4 SECRETARY RTCHMAN: This is the 1_5 challenge, because we want to keep that at very, T6 very much a minimum. T7 That's the challenge. Thatrs also 1B the pt:bJem. And that's also where much of Lhe 19 discussion has to be, both wit,h the industry, the 20 legislature, and among ourselves. 21 Let me Mike Nard.one, who is my 22 deputy from the Department of public Welfare, has 23 aLso been involved in working with this from 24 previous year into the current year 25 DEPUTY SECRETARY NARDONE: My name 232 l_ is Mike Nardone, executive deputy secretary, and 2 I spent a lot of time talking about this issue 3 last year about this time : 4 I think that conversations with CMS F f, have been relatively positive ones. And our 6 commitment was then, and I think it continues to 7 be, that as we move forward with the plan, werre B going to keep you apprized of .what the potential 9 impacts are, as welL as the industry moving 10 forward. think that's the commitment we made Ll- to you last year, and that continues to be the T2 commitment this year. 13 And I believe we held a meeting, T t4 think a couple of weeks dgo, to make sure that L5 committee staf f , as weIl as represent,atives f rom L6 the industry, had the most up-to-date informatibn t7 in terms of what we were hearing from CMS related 1B to this proposal. 19 And that continues to be our 20 commitment. 2r' CHAIRMAN ARGALL: Thank you. Let me 22 turn to another one of those dark clouds on the 23 horizon. The intergovernmental transfer funds, 24 wer.re now in the third year of the eight-year 25 phase -ouE . And I rm curious as to what t,he 233 L depa'rtmentrs ongoj-ng plans are to live with 2 !his -- these decreasing dollars. 3 SECRETARY RICHMAN: Let me just say .4 in overvi.ew, and f wi 11 have my budget deputy 5 answer it in more d.etail, is indeed, as we as 6 the budget continues to struggle and DpW tends to 7 be one of the largest of the B pu11s off Ehe staEe budget, we are delving deep 9 into those dollars to keep the budget balanced.. 10 And this was so that we wouldn't have to go into 11 e1i9ibility. t2 You worked. very hard with the 13 administration, I believe last year, to make sure L4 that we were able to not cut eligibility, that we L5 could re.turn many of the dol lars that were out of 15 our budget back in. t7 What that means, you know, to 1_B maintain that and to maintain the dol_Iars that t-9 were gne-time doLlars from the federal government 20 that werve had to look at, anything that was in 2t reserve, including the rGT, to make sure we coul-d 22 maintain those commitments this year I 23 oupury sEcRETARy RossKopF: As you 24 have;su99ested, Mr. Chairman, the 25 intergovernmental transfer is phasing out at 234 approximately $200 million a year until fiscal 2 year 2009, 20 1 0 when the phase-out will be 3 completed. 4 In addition to looking at 5 controlling the growth and costs in the 6 departmentr s program, I don't believe it r-s any 7 secret that the department, is currently in the : B process of entering into a revenue enhancement 'with 9 contract one or more vendors to Lry and . 10 generate ad.ditional fed^era1 d.ollars from l_ l_ additional sources. l2 Some of that money will be used to 13 offset the loss of the intergovernmental l4 transfer. How much will be generated to offset 15 that loss is unclear at this point in time. We 16 wonrt know until we have a contractor on board L7 and they have a chance to scour our department as 1B well as other state departments to see what L9 dollars may be there that we can can we can 20 earn to offset the loss of the intergovernmental 2t transfer funds. 22 CHAIRMAN ARGALI_r: Are we certain 23 that the federal commitment will remain'in place 24 in regard t,o the IGT, that we wonr t see either 25 any positive or negative changes in that 235 L schedule? 2 DEPUTY SECRETARY ROSSKOPF: I think 3 what you I re referring to are recent news releases + and statements by the federal government reLated 5 to state plan amendments that states have b submitted. to the Centers for Medicare and 'Medicaid, 7 Sbudies, which is CMS, that don,t B necessarily relate to intergovernmentar transfer 9 activities, and the federal government saying we 10 may be willing to approve your state plan t_1 amendment if you generate funds from this source, t2 but tied to that it has to be a commitment on the I 13 part of the stat,e to walk away from the existing l4 agreement on the phase out of the . 15 intergovernmental transf er t6 I would suggest to you that that is t7 nothing more than a proposal at this point in 1B time. I . think a number of states are very upset 19 about tying tlu phaseout of intergovernmental 20 transfer to ot,her initiat,ives that they may be 2L interested in pursuing over time, 22 I am not convinced that the federal 23 gove rnment, will be successful in trying to 24 tie these things together. Only ,time wil-1 teIl. 25 But I bel ieve that t,his 236 1 administration will be very aggressiwe in making 2 sure that our exj-sting intergovernmental transfer 3 agreement stays in p1ace. Keep in' mind that that .t is an agreement that this add that this 5 federal administration signed off orr, and they 6 are now attempting in some instances to walk away 7 from those agreements. B And I believe that that will be 9 resisted strongly. Not only by Pennsylvania, but L0 by a number of other states. l_L CHAIRMAN ARGALL: For very good t2 reason. 13 Could. one of you walk me through, T4 just ever so briefly, the use of the fGT,. both in 15 this budget year as well as in the proposal as L5 submitted by the Governor t7 DEPUTY SECRETARY ROSSKOPF: 1B Regardless of which year you may select, 19 Mr. Chairman, t,he bulk of the intergovernmental 20 transfer funds are used to offset the costs of 2I the long-term care appropriation, our nursing 22 home reimbursement. 23 We have for a number of years been o 24 utilizing approximately g25O milLj.on from 25 intergovernmental transfer funds as a state fund 237 -l_ offset to the. long-term care appropriation. 2 fn the budget that is being 3 proposed, the Department is utilizing an .4 additional $2OO miLlion out of the fcT reserve. 5 That will be used to offset both long-term care 6 and our capitation appropriation. 7 We also t,he capitation B approprj-ation being the managed care 9 appropriatj-on in the Department'. L0 We also use those funds to offset a 11 portion of our supplemental security income t2 appropr j-ation, behavior health services t-3 appfopriation. L4 In the past we have used 5 int,ergovernmental transfer funds to offset a .t_ t6 portion of the cost of the human servj-ce l7 development fund l_B In general, f'd say in gg and. a half 19 percent of the cases we utilize those dolLars to 20 offset, health care-related activities within the 2L Department. There are also intergovernmental 22 transfer fund.s that are used to offset home and 23 community-based service cosEs in the department 24 of Aging as we11. That's a general. answer. 25 CHAIRMAN ARGALL: What,s the 238 l" remaining balance? .2 DEPUTY SECRETARY ROSSKOPF:- After 3 at the end of fiscal year I O4- I O5 y€s, ' O3-04, I believe we will have $92 miLlion left in that, 5 fund, in the reserve. That doesnrt take into 6 account the intergovernmentaL transfer agreements 7 thaL we'wi.11 enter into over the course of the B next four or five fiscal years. 9 Money from those agreements goes on 10 top of that reserve. 11 CHAI RMAN ARGALL,: What about the \2 f guess i t rvas the other f ederal f und, that came 1_3 to the state 1ast, year, very difficult year, a t4 1it,t1e less difficult,. L5 DEPUTY SECRETARY ROSSKOpF: yes, L5 yes. t7 CHAIRMAN ARGALIJ: Those that came to 1B us, how did we finally sp1it, those up? L9 DEPUTY SECRETARY ROSSKOpF: It was 20 just as a littIe background, there was $20 2t million made. available at t,he f ed.eral 1eve1, 22 broken into two $fO billion points. Out of the 23 $10 billion portion that related to enhanced. 24 f ed.eral med.ical assistance report, which you and 25 your staf f and I would know as .FFp or FMAP, w€ 1 received approximately 9433 mi1lion. '2 I can te11 you that alL of those 3 funds were used to offset the state fund cost of '4 our med.ical assistance programs and a number of 5 other programs like the state mental hospitals, 5 the state mental retardation centers. That was .7 all done within the Department of Welfare. I can provide you a much more 9 detailed breakdown if you would like that 10 CHAI RMAN ARGALIT: I think that would 1_1 be helpful. Were any of those dollars used to ']-2 meet needs in the suppl emental request ? .Lhe 13 DEPUTY SECRETARY ROSSKOPF: yes, L4 they were, $57 mi11ion. 15 CHATRMAN ARGAI-TI': Thank you very 1-6 much. Representative Evans. l7 REPRESENTATIVE EVANS: Thank you, 1B Mr. Chairman. I guess f should make a little L9 political commercial, in that probably if ArIen 20 Specter gets reel-ected we could get that money. 2t We can get that money, right? 22 A11 depends on who I s in there, 23 right? Nobody talks about that part of it. But 24 f would put that in there. Be1 l eve me .' a 25 SECRETARY RICHMAN: We would love to 240 1 have that FMAP money back. 2 REPRESENTATfVE EVANS: I heard you. 5 That's why I said'to Dave if he does the right 1i thing, w€ can get this balanced. 5 CHAI RMAN ARGALL : You know ITI€, 6 Dwight. Irm not a reaL political guy. 7 REPRESENTATIVE EVANS: I ThiNK I B would just mention that to Dave if hers there. I 9 Madam Secretary, and to your very l_0 capable deputy secretaries who has probably done L1 magic with this budget for a zillion years, now t2 probably wetre running out of the magic. o 13 And the budget secretary was here L4 Lhis week and I thought he did a good. job. ' 15 And some time I think, Madam L5 Secretary, ds most I think you all have been a t7 1itt1e too nice with us in the General Assembly. 1B You all have been you all have done a good 19 job. And what I always say is a lot of this did 20 - not occur on your watch. You're just coming off 2L it,. And the Governor has not point,ed. f ing.r": 22 So he stated in his speech and Irm not of 23 course pointing fingers but what I am 24 interested in is an education process. 25 And as the chairman was going down 24r L the path asking basic question.s, I want to try to 2 deal with the macro picture and my understanding 3 of where we are with this situation. 4 Now, going based on the budget 5 secretary, he has indicated when you reaLly look 6 at the demands, if we were to take the growth in 7 the overall budget and we were to give it all to I welfare would be in the ballpark of 5OO to $8OO 9 million in terms of just stuff in terms of l-0 deliveriqg services. 1_1 SECRETARY RICHMAN: ActuaI1y, yeah. a2 Why why donrt you finish your question. L3 REPRESENTATIVE EVANS: We11, L4 basically in the ballpark of 500 to $800 million 1_5 in terms of just holding your programs as they L6 are? Is this in that ballpark? 17 SECRETARY RfCHMAN: Yes, yeah. L8 DEPUTY SECRETARY ROSSKOPF: Roughly, 19 yes. 20 REPRESENTATIVE EVANS: So The 2t question rea11y is, you know, and of course itts. 22 an -: of course itrs all of us as members to 23 decide about having these services be delivered, 24 because the real question is if we obviously 25 dontt get this money from the federal government 242 1 and we dontt use those assessments and all those 2 other kind of things lhat you have come up, the 3 real question is either welre going to be reducing these programs, w€rre either going to be 5 cutting programs. We obviously are not going to 6 O. raising taxes, so letts be c1ear. Werre . not 7 going to raise taxes . And i f we .donr t geU f rom 8 the feds the question I reaIIy have is more 9 of a reform question internally, in terms of some 10 kind of recommendations that you all may be 11 making about doing some things differently. t2 And Irm interested in, Mad.am 13 Secretary, some of your thoughts and id.eas on how t4 do you propose werre going to d.o some things L5 differently i'n terms of delivering of services, 15 f irst. L7 Secondly, obviously one of my 18 colleagues, Representative Mundy is probably l-9 going to talk a 1ot about Ehis, is issues.like 20 COLAS. For years we have not been doing. COLAs 2t for me1ta1 health, mental retardation,.which is 22 unfortunaLe because usually the choice which is 23 presented to us is a choice of more slots and no t 24 COLA. 25 And I generally think that's a false 243 1_ choice, because you obviously need to make sure 2 that the workers -- you know, make some kind of 3 investment so they return. 4 So we always think yourre stuck with 5 those choices, you want more slots or you want some kind'of increase. 6 . 7 So Irm just curious -- and I know B yourve only been there a year on .what type or 9 specific short-term, long-term strategies that 10 you may have in terms of changing the way LL services are delivered. t2 SECRETARY RICHMAN: Representative 13 Evans, you're absolutely right. There our T4 budget goes up. The cost to carry budget is 15 somewhere, around 800 million a year. And every l-6 year iu's going to go up because the number of t7 people in need and the depth of that'need. 1_8 continues to rise. 19 There hasn't been a COLA. Hospital 20 costs go up, pharmacy costs go up. So therers a 2l general cost of doing business in the DeparEment 22 of Public Welfare that wiIl continue to force its 23 budget to go up no matEer how much we try to 24 control iE. 25 With that, and understanding that 244 the taxpayers of Pennsylvania do not want a tax 2 increase of the type that we woul-d need j ust to 3 maintain our budget, then it we desperately + need to reorganize ourselves in a way that will' q use our dol-1ars more ef f ectively. o There are three ways that I have 7 looked in the long-term. And many of them will B take a long term as we begin to look at what type 9 of reorganization this will be. 10 From where I stand, we need to 90 11 back to being to l isten t,o what the people who t2 use the services see that works for them. 13 Irm not sure welve listened well t4 enough to what is working for the people whose 15 1 ives are being transformed or who need those 16 services. t7 From my vantage point, if we 1B listened well we will learn a whole lot about 19 what's ef fective and whatrs not effective, what 20 works and what doesnrt work, so we stop spending 2t money on things that nobody wants and are 22 ineffect ive . 23 The second one, DPW, while it 24 answe r s to the name of DPw, is rea11y six 25 separaLe program offices. The program offices 245 have performed in what I caLl a silo fashion, so 2 that we fund six different entities. 3 The clients overlaP in almost aLl 4 six of those, but we function in six different 5 ways. 6 One of the goals I have is to find 7 a a define ways to integraEe these services I so they make sense again for the people who use 9 them. L0 So if a familv that's in welfare LL thatrs making the transition from weLfare to l2 work, has children using mental retardation, L3 mental health services, the mom may be using a 1-4 drug and .alcohol service, a f ather may be looking 15 for work, they need housing, we need to not tear l_5 this apart, force them into seven different I7 departments, work'with four different county 'agencies 'we 1B and not bring it together, so can use l-9 our resources in ways that make sense. 20 Itrs hard to quantify that, but I 2t actually Ehink if I Iook at some of the. very 22 sma1l counties that have done a good job of 23 integratitg, and there are some that are 24 developing, we could probably begin to use our 25 dollars a 1ot, more effectivelY, so we can fund' 246 1 COLAS. 2 You know, oD the top of my unfunded 3 list is COLAs for retention/recruitment. It has 4 to be. Having spent mosL of my life here in 5 Pennsylvania as a county administrator, you cantE 6 run a county if you donrt have ways to support 7 the employees who work for the provid.er agencies that do all the work. We have to find a way to 9 d.o it. l_0 But we also need not to cut LL eligibility. You know, the number one issue on L2 my funded list was maintaining eligibility rat,her t 13 than cutting people off. 14 The third one is are we getting our 15 moneyrs worth? We talked about this a litt1e 16 last year. l7 I'm not convinced that werre getting 1B our moneyrs worth from all the dollars that we L9 have out there, or having them giving our money's 20 worth in ways that make sense. 2t We've established Lhis year an 22 initiative ca11ed PeopleStat. PeopleStat is 23 based on Compstat out of New York and 24 Philadelphia and Citystat out of Baltimore. 25 That is a database system that 247 L begins to look at how money is being used. Are we getting results from it? It may use 3 performance-base contract.i.g, but it, uses data to 4 guide what we spend, how we spend, and whether we 5 should. should continue to spend it in the same 6 way. 7 We need to totally rechange how we B do business 9 I visited a county a couple of weeks L0 Bgo, and one of the questions they asked, they Ll_ said you have two teams Uhat work with children. t2 They fund one team is funded. out of the Office 13 of Children, Youth, and Families and. investigates l4 abuse, particul-ar1y that of older children. We L5 have another team funded by the Office of Ment,al l_6 HeaIth and Substance Abuse that responds to t7 crisis. 1B They want to know if they can have 19 one team do both and not have to do both not 20 have to fund two different teams because they 2t both donlt stay busy all the time, and use the 22 money they save in a different \^/ay, which 23 requires us to be flexible. It requires us to 24 combine our goal s in a di f f erent way than we d.o 25 now That makes sense to me. 248 fn the past, DPW has been what I 2 call a very rigid organization, very tied to 3 rules that we donrt question. And we have not 4 given our counties or our providers the 5 flexibility they need to make the best use of the 6 d,oIIars. Given that dollars are not going to 7 slow as' perhaps they did in the past, w€ need to I change how we do business. 9 t-0 solut j-ons. We may f ind dollars. Whether we will 11 ever find. enough d.oLlars for everybod.y to have L2 everything. they need, I canrt say. 13 There will always be a need for L4 people who are who are experiencing tfre kind.s 15 of trauma many of our cl-ients do. 16 But we can do a lot better and we t7 should be able to fund, I hope in the future we l_8 will -- I hope working with the legislature, both 19 the House and the Senate, we can find, ways to 20 meet the need wiL,hin a COI-,A and retention and 2t recruitment, because you canrt run a system 22 without staff. 23 REPRESENTATIVE EVANS: If You had 24 your crysta I ball and you haverrave oneo thing about 25 your experience youtre right, you have been on 249 1_ both sides. Yourve been at the county Level and 2 yon obviously have been at the state level. 3 And you understand the PoliticaI 4 climate that we are operating the political 5 climate and the fisce r1 climate. And obviouslY we 6 are in ther interesting Lime from a national 7 policy standpoint with a huge deficit aE the 8 national 1eve1, and, you know, slowdown in the 9 economy and the squeezing. And you all wal-k in, L0 you -- when I say YOU, referring to the 11 Governor aL a rather interesting time.' L2 And I know You have the Pressure of L3 whatrs taking place nationally and politically L4 and financially, and you have the pressure from 15 us wanting you to deliver. I donrt care what 16 side of the aisle it is, everybbdy has some t7 constituency that is on some waiting List. 18 SECRETARY RfCHMAN: That 's right . 19 REPRESENTATIVE BVANS: And theY all 20 want their program protected while other programs 2t are reduced. I hear this all the time. 22 So what kind of time sPan would 23 those three things you have described, that you 24 think you need" to try to make the kind of changes 25 that you think are necessary? Because, look, 250 1 obviously I I ve heard a lot of secretaries of 2 welfare come before this committee, and f think 3 that what., we havenrt had is we havenrt kind of 4 done change on what I consider a rational way. 5 Itts been irrational whenever we 6 have tried to make change, because sometimes 7 people don't think people who sit in your seat I or your predecessors wanted to make change but I 9 think we have this situation where you have this 10 external pressure on you'but you're trying to do 1L the things you like !2 What kind. of, is it two Years? Is I 13 it t,hree years? Is it four years that you can 14 see t,o try to change, because I see it as much as L5 a cultural change within the Department. 16 SECRETARY RICHMAN: ft 1-7 REPRESENTATIVE EVANS: With everY 1B single department, with every single employee, 19 everybody has to understand that,the world is 20 changing, but you know, also you got to deliver 2T these services 22 So what kind of tj-me frame do You 23 see that you think you would need to in order 24 to make some of t,hose changes yourre talking 25 about ? 25]- SECRETARY RICHMAN: We11, some of 4 those changes werre making now. 3 REPRESENTATIVE EVANS: Okay. .t SECRETARY RICHMAN: Some of them are 5 a matter of changing policy. 'Some of them are 6 the matter of beginning to say things are going 7 to be different. And I have the abiliiy of, from I sitting as Secretary, to say wefre going to.do 9 this differently. 10 Others, r" need you as partners as "l_1 we begin to look at regulation change and T2 legislative change. Werre also looking at state l_3 plan amendment changes and spending a lot of time L4 with the federal government. L5 We are going to :- one of the 16 challenges I have given whenever I I m out in the T7 c.ommunity, and Irm spending a 1ot of t.ime out in . L8 all different parts of the state, is saying where 19 we have ruLes that are stopping you from being 20 effective and efficient as you operate programs 21, within your coulxty, te11 me where they are so we 22 can begin to change them 23 Irm also putting Logether a group 24 thatrs going to look at all of our all of our 25 legislation and all of our regulations, all of 252 1 our regulations that were frequently written in 2 the r50s, r50s, i ?0s, and t BOs, to make sure J theyrre relevant for 2004, 2010. Some of them 4 may be, some of them.may not. But you cannot run 5 system to the future always based on things i 6 that were based at what was current in the past. 7 I was reading one of my medical B assistance rules that was stil1 talking about a 9 kidney Lransplant as an experimental. procedure. 10 It hasnft been experimental procedure for years, 11 yet the guidel ines that I find in some of our L2 regs treat it that way. We need to go through L3 and make sure we are not putting barriers in L4 peoplets way that they.have to abide by that jusF 15 don t'L make sense, that cost us money, that cost 16 the taxpayers money, in the way we implement or t7 the way that we begin to enforce them 18 So it's I don't think there is a 19 time when I say werre there. I'm saying now, 20 cont inue to change . I-ret me give you 2t REPRESENTATIVE EVANS: So you ' 22 couldntt say not to you couldntt say in a 23 year 2007, in the year 2007, if you were looking 24 down the line in thatrs three years from now, t 25 this is where I think the Department will be in 253 1 terms of some of the things in 2OO7 and go orr, I 2 mean give us I understand that's difficult to 3 make, but some sense of how do we reconcile? 4 We know what the revenue picturers 5 1ike. And I would argue, no matter who's elected 6 president in November, in my view, I think it.'s 7 going to be very difficult, no matter what, 8 because what is taking place nationally. 9 You know, you dontt have to have a 10 crystal ball to understand that youtre going to 11 have to reconcile the national budget, that when I2 they reconcile the national budget that usually 13 means the states take a burden. - t4 So in that climate I rm trying to 15 figure out 15 SECRETARY RICHMAN: I could probably t7 te1l, you what I l ike the world to be l ike, what f J-t' would like DPW to be like in 2007. t_9 REPRESENTATIVE EVANS: Right. 20 SECRETARY RICHMAN: And what it 2I would take to get there. I would love to be able 22 to actually pyt that down on paper and provide it 23 to you. I rve actual 1y I rve done some thinking 24 about how I want to be different, because thatrs 25 how I rm guiding DPW. za+ L Therers some things that wefve 2 already changed. And Irm assuming I will J ultimately get a question about the Autism Task t Force, how d.o we treat people wit,h autism by 5 2OO - - by 2Oo7 will be significantly different. 6 How we treat people with disability 7 will be different. 8 I fu11y right now Pennsylvania 9 has 84 percent of its people eligible for L0 long-term care in nursing home. I home that Ll_ nursing home number is down closer to 50 percent L2 in two years or three years, and that many people 13 who want to age at home and age in place will T4 have the ability to do that \ 15 My hope is that we have worked with L6 a number of different partners -- aging, t7 education and health so thaL we reaI1y have, 1B when I. say an integrated system, werve had 19 partners in working in integrated system so that 20 quality of life of many of our people receiving 2L mental health and mental retardation services and 22 children and youth services are significantly 23 different; that we have assisted living built in 24 so that we have a different way for people to 25 live rather than in personal care boarding homes. 255 1 You know, the agenda t,hat we have in 2 medical assistance is very broad, that we have 3 we're taking a very strong look at whether 4 managed care should exist in our very rural 5 counties, and whether a primary care physician' 6 management network makes more sense. 7 Werre looking at how we manage B health within the fee-for-service system, rather 9 than just leaving it as a free-for-a11, but L0 making sure we can get to a disease management 11_ model in ways that are keep the population 1,2 much healthier. r_3 Werre talking about in the counties I4 wiUhin behavioral health beginning to have them L5 take responsibility for their managed care ' 1_6 programs in a different way and creating a system 1,7 of care within those counties that, includes l_B children and youth, drug and .a1coho1, and. mental 19 retardation in ways that we havenrt done it 20 before. So the first question that someone geLs 2t asked isnrt what insurance company you have, but 22 how we can. begin to treat the illness that st,ops 23 you from having a quality of life 24 By doing thaL we hopefully will ,rt 25 return more people to the world of work so we 256 l_ have more tax doIlars. z The more people f can get into 3 working, the more dollars we all have to work 4 wi th 5 I mean, theytre for almost every 6 single department, office within DPW we have some 7 very aggressive goals in terms of how they need B to look different in an integrated wdy, not 9 isolated. L0 The more we operate as silos and l- l_ someone said we not only have si1os, we have t2 silos with gun turrets on them. So we need to L3 take away the silos and take away the feeling l4 that werre all operating independent of each t-5 other in a way thatrs destructive to the whole. r.6 As we become better partners and as t7 we become better sharers of t.he research 1_8 resources within DPW, then we should be able to 19 have a major impact on the health and wellness 20 within Pennsylvania. A recent conversation with 21, the Governor says we now need to make sure we 22 .start having keeping children, having families 23 understand. the need for good nutrition in their 24 chi 1 dren . I 25 Pennsylvania and many other states 257 lead the way to obesity, juvenile obesity. 2 This isn't going to heIP us get to the future. Werre still going to poor more money 4 in the deep end of getting people healthy rather 5 than keeping them weL1. 6 We have significant goals around 7 child care. We know that children that we provide healthy day care to we save $7 on the 8 'l ? deep end if we can make sure that their first 10 five years of their life that we can keep.them 1L healthy, we keep them safe, and we can get them t2 ready to learn in school. 13 So, I mean, there are just so many 1,4 init,iatives that we thought of that will be l_5 different in three years. 15 REPRESENTATIVE EVANS: What I would t7 like, to't,he Chairman I say in closing, if you 1B could, I mean, I think, just to help with some of L9 that kind of thinking through, because I think it 20 would be helpful for this committee and this 21, General As'semb1y, you know, to have some kind of 22 measure, what d.oes it look I ike three years f rom 23 now ? 24 I think it helps us, i f we look at 25 the policy outcomes and measure and align the 258 1 policy outcomes with our budgetary objectives. I 2 mean, I think it would help us look at this process in terms of what outcomes. 4 I mean, and we know I donrt think 5 we can hold to a hundred percent because therers 6 a 1ot of things you have to r.ealign. But f think 7 it wou1d. be helpful in this process if we looked I at, it from.this way. "Thatrs 9 why f said I wouId. like from 10 you and the Secretary of Bud.get, I think we need 11 'to know how serious this problem rea1ly is, in my I2 vj-ew, f rom a state and naLional standpoint. l_3 I mean, f don't think I don't 14 think we in the General Assembly even understand L5 how serious. J-O You know, you taLk about structural t7 deficit. It is no joke where we are today in L8 terms of some of the decisions we have to make. 19 I said I don't think Governor 2A Rendellts going to get another tax increase under 2L any circumstances, but so we understand that. 22 But the reality of it is then you have to realign 23 t,hi s overal I budget and what we want to do . 24 So I think you can be helpful to us. 25 And you and everybody's been very nice with lts, 259 but I think you need to be a lit.tl-e more 2 aggressave in telling us what's, you know, r€a11y 3 there. 4 SECRETARY RICHMAN: I-ret me make this 5 statement that f'11 probably make several times. 6 I f the bud^get i f we have a very aggressive 7 budget for revenue maximization for many ways to 8 generate dollars, if we canrt do it, Plan B is 9 eligibility cuts. Thatrs what other states have 10 gone to. Most of the other states have looked. at 1L eligibility cuts if when they cannot close t2 budget gaps l-3 Werve avoided that. Wetve found L4 other ways. We!re going to push'and work with 15 the federal government and other partners, the L6 Med icaid partner at the f ederal level . as a . L7 partnership between states and the fed.eral l_8 gove rnment . 19 We need to push that relationship 20 and begin to understand how we generate 2L dollars, both 1eve1s, how we use our dollars 22 effectively. 23 None of us want to go back to look 24 at eligibility. 25 REPRESENTATI EVANS: Whatrs Arlen 260 L Specterrs number? Thank you very much, Madam 2 Secretary. 3 CHAI RMAN ARGAI-IL : Your re j ust ful I 4 of surprises. Representative Schroder 5 REPRESENTATIVE SCHRODER: Thank you 6 Mr. Chairman. Secretary Richman, good afternoon 7 Over here. B SECRETARY RfCHMAN: Over here. 9 REPRESENTATIVE SCHRODER: I know it l_0 can be difficult to span this wide room. I wilL Ll_ start off certainly on a positive note. And I I2 believe in giving credit where credit is.due, 13 certainly. 1_4 And I want to thank you and your i-5 Department, as well as the administration, for l-5 all the hard work that you have done on House L7 Bill l-OO, the Trauma Center Stabilization Act. 1B As you might know, that bill is currently pending 19 in the Senate and we believe within in the next 20 couple weeks the Senate will act on that. 2t And I know the Governor is anxiously 22 looking forward to getting it on his desk, ds am 23 I. 24 Your re also aware that during thi s 25 budge t , the current budget year, there is $12. 5 26I 1 million appropriated for that piece of 2 legislation. Of course werre now j ust a littLe 3 shy of four months left during the current fiscal 4 year. 5 I just want to make sure that the 6 Department is ready to go on this, ds far as 7 acting quickly to appropriate those fund.s to geE B them out the door during this fiscal year, ds 9 well as Irm pleased to see hers. proposing and for L0 the next fiscal year. l_1 SECRETARY RICHMAN: Yes. L2 REPRESENTATIVE SCHRODER: Would you ' L3 care to nment on that? L4 SECRETARY RICHMAN: We been fave L5 ready and have been planning for Ehis. There 16 shouldn't be a problem at all in making sure we 'So T7 can get those dollars out the door. this is, 18 I looked back at my staff because the last time I l_9 checked on.Monday the answer was yes. And I 20 wanted to make sure there werenrt any changes in 2T that. And indeed, we are ready to make sure 22 Ehose dol'1ars can get out quickly. 23 REPRESENTATIVE SCHRODER: Great. 24 We11, I'.m pleased to hear that. And I know the 25 hospitals and trauma centers will be pleased to .. r.-- 262 hear .that, as .".We11. . . 2 Turning to another matter, Madam 3 Secretary, just several of the topics that weIve 4 heard. taLked about already, you mentioned the 5 need to organize the Department to use dollars 6 more effectively -: werve heard of the issue of 7 waiting lists', the need f or f unding. f or COLAs. 8 Therers no funding of needs obviously. 9 And when Bud.get Secret,ary Masch was 10 in last week he cited, you know, increased l_L medical assistance, expenses as one of the T2 drivers of our budget over the next few years. 13 And that's certainly a phenomena that we have t4 seen in the past as well. 15 With all that in.mind, in trying to 16 think abciuL new ways to do things in the I7 Department, has the Department ever considered, t-8 and I guess I'm asking you if you would consider, L9 going to basically a six month review process for 20 determining eligibility for different programs? 2L What that would do or potentially 22 do, as f see it, would be to get people, 23 especially if it's income, f inanc j-a1-based. 24 eligibility, circumstances change within the 25 course of a year. Someone might not be eligible 26.3 for, you know, c€rtain benefits for an entire 2 year. They cou1d. be taken of f earl-ier, have. now J people.brought on who are waiting, save money, 4 whatever the case might be 5 ate of Texas has done six month 6 eligibility reviews. And reports that r have are 7 that they have saved a 1ot of mofl€y, money that B could be used, if we are successful in, saving it, 9 to, y.ou know, meet some of these other needs that l-0 have been discussed already. 1i. And I also believe it meets what 'one t2 youtve stated now as your number priority, 13 which is.not to cut eligibility, or not to change t4 eIigibility. And this, while it reviews 15 eligibility more often, it wouldn't, you know, r,6 make it tougher to be eligible for, you know, for t7 some of these programs 1B So I just wanted to throw that, I L9 guess, that broad concept out ther€, dsk you if 20 yourve considered anything like that. And I 2t would. hope that you would consider that. 22 SECRETARY RICHMAN: I was lookirg, 23 because I know on at least our food sEamp program 'were 24 we lve gone . to six .months. But we at one 25 month and moved to six month, which gave us a 264 1 better rate. 2 Some of our medicaL assistance { programs are on a year. Some of them varv to six 4 months. 5 If part of your question is wil-1 we 6 consider looking at a more frequent one where we 7 have iE longer, certainly we can we can look I at Lhat 9 Irm at - - I 'm not taking anything 1_0 off the table in terms of ways that we can use L1 our doflars most effectively and begin to make T2 sure that people who need the service get it and l-3 people who are ready to move on. 'J" 4 There are several things that r -- 15 Irve learned by listening , d9ain, to many of the 16 advocates and providers. t7 One of them is that if we can get a l_8 1ittle bit more education to people moving from 19 welfare to work or we can sure the re I s good .make 20 after-care services after people have had 2.1 treatment, then we tend to keep them out of the 22 deepest end of our service continuum the longest. 23 My hope and many of our cases for a 24 our child welfare system we rre seeing kids so 25 late somet imes that they're in our deepest end, 265 , 1 most expensive services by the time we can 2 intervene. 3 I think the Governorrs plan and mine 4 is if we can inter if we can identify children 5 most at risk, if we can work with some of our 6 families who are asking for help early orl, then 7 we don't need to have so many kids needing such 8 expensive residential service much later. 9 So part of it is we begin to shift r.0 our paradigm Lo one of prevention, begin to look 11 at what our families need and when, and begin to L2 get these services so far up front we don't have 13 to spend so many dollars later on. 14 This is behind our init,iative a1so, 15 in terms of if we can keep you healthy, get you L6 healthy health style then we don't have to treat l7 you for the most expensive heal-th problems later 18 on. 19 want to tie all that together. and 20 have systems that make sense for people. Moving 2t to six mont,hs on food stamps made sense. Begin 22 to look at our length of time on medical 23 assistance makes sense. So we will certainly 24 take that under ad.visement. 25 RBPRESENTATIVE SCHRODER : 266 l_ appreciate your answer to that, your willingness 2 to cons id.er those shorter el igible periods,. 3 because it could be not a total answer to all of "4 our needs but it cou1d, you know, provide some 5 . savings there. Thank you. 6 SECRETARY RICHMAN: Thank you. 7 REPRESENTATIVE BAKER: MAdAM B Secretary, just for the benefit of Irm no 9 longer Dave Arga11. 10 SECRETARY RICHMAN: I was going to 11 sdy, you aren't Dave Arga11 anyway t2 REPRESENTATIVE BAKER: I'm pitch 13 hitting. For the sake of the members, though, 14 unlike the chairman, theyrre limited to five l-5 minutes. And I sense your passion and your 16 comprehensive knowled.ge base, but Irm sure the t7 members would appreciate the answers perhaps 1B being a lit,tLe shorter since they only have five l_9 minutes each. Thanks so much. 20 Representative Tangretti is 2t recogni zed. : 22 REPRESENTATIVE TANGRETTI: ThANK 23 you, Mr. Chairman. Madam Secretary, nice to see 24 you agaLn. 25 SECRETARY RICHMAN: Good seeing you. 267 1 REPRBSENTATIVE TANGRETTI: I want to 2 turn your attention to MR residential services. J Your proposed budget increases to 325 s1ots, or 4 about $ 6 mi IIj-on . And f or a number of years now 5 Irve talked to parents who have held onto their 6 children for a number of years, and theyrre. 7 getting on years and want to provide for them .in B in t,he f uture when they're gone 9 there are a number of folks who 10 are on waiting lists as a result, Irm sure you're 11 obviously aware of, usually extensive. t2 I want you to consid.er - - and maybe 13 you have. I .don't know but in my district L4 three or four sets of parents pooled their L5 resources and bought a home and provided with 16 their offspring with a contract for one of the t7 provider service. L8 And. with some date in the future 19 they then would turn that home over to that ' 20 provider as part of the service contract.- 2L It seems to me that might be an 22 alternative for us if we were to be able to 23 provide assistance for parents to do that in 24 terms of 1ow interest mortrgages, some sort of 25 evolving loan fund or some sort of method by 268 which we could assist them in doing thaL. Has the DePartment ever looked at 3 Ehat? Have you ever discussed that possibility? 4 SECRETARY RICHMAN:". I havenrt looked 5 at that since Itve been here, but certainly the 6 office of Mental Retardation, led by Deputy 7 Secretary Kevin Casey is absolutely looking at B some of those models. 9 Our hope is that we need to look at 10 other models. And that certainly is one. Ll_ Another model would be family living models. L2 Werre trying to figure out how we make our L3 do]lars extend as far as possible as to be'able L4 to cut this waiting List 15 To delve into the waiting lisE l_6 somewhere between 5 and $BOO t7 and BOO people, based on the dollars we have for 18 half a year, is a tiny drop in a. L7,000 person 1_9 waiting list 20 So we need to find new, creative , 21, origj-na1 ways to be able to do this. And this is 22 one that we will consid.er 23 REPRESENTATIVE TANGRETTI: Let. me 24 just offer, Irm not exactly sure whether thatts 25 ,' accomplishable so1ely within Ehe Department, 269 l_ whether you need legislative assistance. But I 2 would offer the assistance of myself and anyone else, I'ITl sure. f think this is an absolutely 4 essential thing we have to do. 5 t"! me just turn brieflY to one area 6 that you and I have communicated on along with 7 6ther members. Those disabled individuals who t' were eligible for wrap-around services and we 9 talked specifically about a constituent of mine, 10 if you'11 remember, and you probably donrt 1t bec'ause of all the things on your mind. But the t2 . individual who autism child who was i-n the 13 program with wrap-around services for four years t4 making wonderful progress and had the tragedy of l-5 l.osing his father, then complicated and L6 tremendous difficulty, additionally, of having l7 the tragedy of being taken off of the wrap-around l_B services or out of the system because. he now is 19 eligible for social security survivor benefits. 20 We had the meetitg, I know that you 2t are working diligently and Lirelessly t,rying to 22 find a solut ion to that problem. 23 Have you come up with anything that 24 we can talk about now? 25 SECRETARY RICHMAN: Yes We believe 270 L we have found a solution. 'REPRESENTATIVE z TANGRETTf : Terrif ic. 3 SECRETARY RICHMAN: We have reached 4 back uo all of the families that were identified 5 to us to make sure theyrre back on both 6 wrap-around and back on benefits. 7 And if thaL particular family, and f B do remember your letter, is not on we tried to 9 make sure we went back and touched all of those. l_0 Werre now- inJ - theLl- ^ process of we will LL be working with you about how we draft the kind t2 of reguLation we need to make this permanent. 13 Right now wetre sti11 working on t4 that exception basis, and identifying people L5 either as they become aware or they ident,ify 15 themselves because a family member the bread l.7. winner of the family has died. But werre in the 1B process of solving it. 19 I wanted to solve that people who 20 were immediately hurt first. And now werre going 2t to go back and Lry to pul the system in place. 22 REPRESENTATM TANGRETTI : Irm not 23 even asking you where you found the money, but I 24 appreciate that. I 'm going to work with 25 Mr. Cohen about whether, in fact, our 27t L consLituentrs invoLved in that. 2 SECRETARY RICHMAN: Let me know. 3 But I think we tried to pick up everyone. 4 DEPUTY SECRETARY NARDONE: Yes, he 5 did go back to that family that you were 6 particularly concerned about. And basically. 7 right now we have a freeze.on any individuals being thrown off the rolls for that reason. 9 REPRESENTATM TANGRETTI: Terrific. 10 Thank you very much. That is'tremendous work. 11 Thank you. Thank you for taking care of that. t2 REPRESENTATIVE BAKER: L3 Representative Cappell i . L4 REPRESENTATIVE CAPPEI-rLf : Thank You, l_5 l,tr. Chairman. Thank you, Madam Secretary. I 16 realize it's difficult for us to see each other. t7 Irm one of those individuals who was L8 raised by his family believing that the first 19 principal function of any aspect of government, I 20 guess, is to truly assist and take care of those 2t who cannot take care of themselves. 22 ' And when I look at the various 23 consticuencies that fa11 under the $2 1 billion 24 Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare 25 auspices, I cannot help but think that those who 272 suffer from mental health, mental,retardation are at least at or near the toP. 3 And not to sound disrespectful or 4 insolent, because that' is not my intention at 5 all, I have to convey mY deeP, deeP o disappoj-ntment wiLh Lhe Governor for once again 7 failing to recognize the need for adult basic. 8 we have 26,OOO citizens living in community-based 9 direct care. These are people who obviously L0 cannot care for themselves. They may or may not l-1 have family members who are capable of providing t2 che broad. range of services these individuals o," L3 requi re . 14 The professionals who are caring for L5 them 24 days -- 24 hours a d.y, 7 days a week are 16 in fact just that, they are profgssionals." l7 They are earning 50 Percent less 18 than their state counterparts at inLermediate 19 care facilities and mental hospitals. 20 We fre talking, in: mY oPinion, a 2L measly, a paltry $3 million to provide a modest 22 cost of living adjustmenE to these individuals, 23 3O percent of which, f might add, are leaving 24 this. field. each and. every year because .they can I' 25 make ends meet a 1ittle bit better at Wal-MarE, 273 1_ Sheetz, and Burger King. 2 And I guess my question, Madam 3 Secretary, is more to the Governor. I can't 4 i.magine another group that deserves more to be in 5 the Departmentrs wagon rid,ing, not out f ront 6 helping to puI1 it, than this group of 7 individuals. t' How many more do we have to lose? 9 We can put all the money we want into new homes, l_0 ne\r hires, bu-t i f we cannot retain these 11 professionals, if their family members have no ]-2. no sense of a continuum of care because every L3 time they visit therers a new face appearing to l_4 the family member, what are we accomplishing? 15 SECRETARY RICHMAN: Representative, 16 you hit probably one of my pet issues in terms of L7 the need.s of people and the folks who receive programs. 18 services . in our community r-9 It's been several years, believe trl€r 20 but I was working in the city. There were 2I several'years that there were not COLAs', and it 22 makes it very difficult. 23 Itrs the cost of everytrhing goes up. 24 And when a f ami'Iy doesn't get a raise in that 25 paycheck, it makes it very difficult for them to 274 1 stay devoted and committed to the fieId, which is 2 so' important . 3 In moving to control- a very large 4 state budget what I immediately fo.und is.there 5 were very, very tough decisions to be made. And 6 how those d.ecisions get played and what is Left 7 and what j-snrt is what I do day-to-day. One o f the cha l1enge s worki ng B 3ttd 9 wit,hin DPW is where do you how d'o you live 10 within a budget if there are noq a lot of new LL dollars? 1,2 Frequently, the discussions circle L3 around. should Pennsylvania be as other staEes. 14 And the Governor and I and the budget secretary 15 have had several discussions about eligibility. L6 If f were willing to take an T7 .lfgibility cut, I could have had the COLA: 1B The COLA for al-l of the communitY t9 programs including mental health,' mental 20 retardation, children and youth. providers, early 2t intervention, Lhose programs provided with HsDF, 22 all of our homeless assistance program, attendant 23 care, you go down the list. The cost of a 2 24 perc:n-t COLA is $35 mi11ion. Itrs about $35 z5 million to take out general assistance. 275 1 And the choice for me becomes t 2 whether or not I cut eligibility or whether or 3 not I find one more year to wait before this hits 4 the highest of the priority lists because' it 5 cantt' go any longer. 6 We fought very h.ard to h-ave GA Put 7 back in this budget. I wasnrt this year willing B to take it out. And my hope is is that the 9 economy d.oes recover, that the increase in tax L0 dollars, both here in Pennsylvania and the 11 recovery of the economy will give me more leeway, 'that l2 some of the savings I'm trying to. trigger by L3 looking more at how effective our services are, L4 how we take d.own barriers Ehat I think cost.us how we begin to,O" mor.e effective 15 more money, ltrd 15 in what we do will give me the $35 million I need 17 to make sure COI-rA's at the top of Lhe list and. I L8 donrt have to give up something else that's just L9 'as important..r]tr. 20 I think that as werve heard a couPle 2t of t.imes today, the taxpayers of Pennsylvania 22 arenrt going to increase taxes so I have a larger 23 budget, which means I need. to come up wit'h how I 24 take the doLlars that are in this budget and use 25 them, cut them, change them, r€arrange them to be 276 1 able to make sure that therers a'COLA. 2 There will be, one way or another, 3 there wiII be COLA next Year. 4 I don't know how I rm going to come 5 up with that 35 miIlion, and if I have to go to 6 eligibility, I may go there next yea.r because I 7 believe a COLA is that important. But f also B know, because I run a family budget as well as 9 everything e1se, f canrt have everything and I 10 hav.e to make very hard. dec i s ions , and I have to l_1 do it in *.O that hopefully hurts the lowest 1 l2 number of people. 13 REPRESENTATIVE CAPPELI-TI : I thank - t4 you for your response and commitment, Madam r-5 Secretary. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. l_6 REPRESBNTATIVE BAKER: \ t7 Representative Manderino 1B REPRESENTATIVE MANDERINO: Thank 19 you. Thank You, Madam Secretary, for being here- 20 2t analyzing. your Department's budget, I have to say 22 that I am just overwhelmed by the shear 23 numbers -- the shear numbers of people being o 24 served, the shear numbers of people who need 25 service that are on waiting lists, the shear 277 l_ number of dollars that werre talking about for z some of these very important services 3 On the nursing home long-term care 4 issue, the current budget that we just did in 5 December and the future the proposed. budget 6 that welre debatinq now rely on the nursing.home 7 assessments to the tune of federa:"./state added B together,. $600-p1us mi1lion. And I know .you said 9 y.9u're keeping your fingers crossed about whether L0 we get there and I'm not rea1ly even going to LL ask about a PIan B. Irm going to assume we get L2 those dol1ars. 13 What f don I t understand is is that a l_4 one-time solution or an ongoing solution, and are L5 we going to be creating a cash flow problem J-b within the Commonwealth as a result of this, a7 or "SECRETARY 18 RICHMAN: It's ongoing. 19 REPRESENTATIVE MANDERINO: That's 20 good news, because that would be a $600 miLlion 2l hole somewhere just for one program we would have 22 to f i11. 23 On the managed care issue --.I think :a 24 itrs in this yearrs budget there's a proposed' 25 talk of 6 percent t,ax on premium revenues for the 278 1 managed care groups. And, dgain, kind of 2 f ederal Lrying to maximi ze f ederal dol-1ars, 3 werre talking about another $450 -plus million, 4 same thing with that. rf whatrs the 5 likelihood of that happening, if it does happen? 6 Is that one time or ongoing? 7 SECRETARY RICHMAN: It is ongoing. B The probability that's actually an easier 9 asse.ssment than the nursing home assessment, to 1.0 be able to accomplish and work with cMS. L1 So that our hoPe is that we will be L2 beginning the work on that very quickly. This t_3 . one is a litt1e different. We donrt need t4 legislation to accomplish it. But we will need 15 to work very closely with CMS. And it is 16 ongo i ng . t7 REPRESENTATIVE MANDERINO: IN ThC 18 budget that was just passed in December, the L9 Health Choices managed care organizations were 20 authorized, there was, again, 25 million state 2t funds, a total of matching funds, close to $60 22 miLlion of funds being brought down to give a 23 rate increase that was, I think, supposed to be 24 effective this past ,January. 25 Can you update us on the 279 1 implementation efforts to ensure that those funds 2 are being allocated to managed care organizations ? and what's going on wiLh that? '11 + SECRETARY RICHMAN: . That. one' I 5 have my deputy secretary for medical assistance 6 answer. David. 7 DEPUTY SECRETARY FEINBERG: IIM B David Feinb€r9, deputy secretary for'medical 9 assistance. l_0 We are discussing with all of the LL managed care plans the rate increases they're all l2 going.to get . There are seven plans. Two have 13 signed their contracts. We exPecU to have them L4 all done by the end of this month. l-5 REPRESENTATIVE MANDERINO: Great. t6 And again, those numbers, you know, 500 million t7 here, 6O.0 million there, 50 million there kind of l_B overwhelms me. And then finally if I can finish 19 with t,he 3 5 mi l l ion f or the COLA, and I know your 20 dedication to that, 2L And I guess mY question is You 22 mentioned. to Representative Evans, I heard you 23 mention it six times in the Senate, your number 24 one unf unded priority, what wil l- it take to move 25 that from the unfunded. priorities to the funded - 280 L priorities column, .short of an eligibility. cut? ,2 Are t,here any kind of new creative things in the 3 pipeline that we might be able to work together 4 on? 5 SECRETARY RICHMAN: We actually have -- are probably pending completing a ,7 contract for revenue maximization. Werve taken a I very while some people believe it's a very stance, other times. it's a fairly 9 .1,ggte.ssive 10 conservative stance on how much money we believe .: 1L this revenue maximi zation may U3 able to bring t2 into the Department. L3 If it brings in more money than l4 werve put in the budget, then-we we have an' L5 opportunit,y f or it to be able to go f urther. r.6 If it brings in Iess, w€ may have a l7 problem of meeting our budget. LB So we are working now to complete . 19 the contract for the for vendor to help us 20 with this. And this is this is the one place 2t in our budget that we would do it. 22 The other sources we do, if the z5 budget secretary and the revenue secretary ECEJ 24 that Pennsylvania is ouL of recession or t,he 25 economy rebounds and there are new j obs and new 2Bt 1 people moving into the. state and bringing new - tax 2 d.ol Iars >ortunity al so . 3 So again, itts one of those things, 4 Irm not pessimistic about it to r think therers no hope. But it will take a 1ot of work on all 6 of our parts and a Lot of looking for aott.t" and 7 how we d.o it to be able to get there . I f I qan B get to L7 and a half mil1ion frm willing to do L 9 percent. 10 So r dont! have it off the table. I t_l_ just know it's going to take a Lot of rolling up t2 the sleeves,,pushing the federal governmenU, 13 pushing ourselves to make sure our. dollars are t4 doing Lhe work we want, them to do to get there. . 15 REPRESENTATTVE MANDERINO: Thank 16 you t7 REPRESENTATIVE BAKER: J-d Representative Dal1yt s recognized'.' 19 RE PRES ENTAT I VE DAI-rLY: Thank You , 20 Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, Madam Secretary. 2a The first issue I have is 1oca1 in 22 nature, 1ocal to my district as far as rebasing 23 of the Lehigh Va11ey Hospital Muhlenberg 24 Hospital. And you're smiling. I gu"=t,Yourre 25 well aware of this issue. I think Irve sent You 282 L letters and. so has everybody el se in the I-,ehigh 2 Va11ey. 3 But I just want to stress the fact 4 that this hospital has changed dramatically over 5 the. years since it's first, I guess, evaluated or 6 last evaluated. back in rg87. And I would just' 7 requesu once again on the record to ask that the B Department Uo rebase the Lehigh.Va11ey 9 Muhlenberg. 10 SECRETARY RICHMAN: We are involved^ L1 with the Hospital Association of Pennsylvania and l2 our changing'of rates withi.n works within that 13 framework.. We are working with them around, w€ L4 believe, a need to rebase the hospieals in 15 Pennsylvanaa and this would be one. But that is 16 on the'agenda and we will continue to keep you t7 L8 REPRESENTATIVE DALLY: Thank You, 19 Madam Secretary 20 Second question involves Three' 2L Rivers ttealth Care PIan 22 Now this Plan has been Providing 23 good. service in the L,ehigh Va11ey and producing 24 good outcomes. And it t s my understanding that 25 there's a plann]an within the DePart :ment now that the 283 act,uaL reimbursement to this health plan will be z cut based upon the amount of net profits they've 3 real i zed 4 SECRETARY RICHMAN: Let me bring uP 5 the medical assistance deputy. Yourre at a leve1 6 of detail now. 7 DEPUTY SECRETARY FEINBERG: This is I an issue we are rea1ly struggling1l with. I think 9 the issue is is that this particular health plan l_0 is a very efficient health p1an, and a very 11 profitable health pIan. It's pro.fitable now. 1-2 The question is do we Provide 1_3 significant, increases to this health plan, which 1,4 we belj-eve will increase their profits 15 significant,ly, or do we look at some other way of r_6 dealing wit,h this particular p1an, with Three L7 Rivers, in the negotiation werre in now. l_8 We are i-n current we are in 19 negotiations with them currently. 20 And it's just a matter of being 2L comfortable with the profit 1evels that' they've 22 experienced"and would experience and the increase 23 they would experience if they get a fu11 I 24 t_ncrease. 25 REPRESENTATIVE DALLY: I just think 284 it seems to be counterproductive to penalize a z company, and I sense that you have the same 3 concerns, because they have been very efficient 4 and are providing good services. And to then 5 penalize them for that seems counterproductive. DEPUTY SECRETARY FEINBERG: We don't 7 think we would be penalizing them because they B would get an additional increase over what 9 they're receiving now, it just might not be the L0 same increase as every other plan is getting. Li_ REPRESENTATIVE DAI-rLY: I would j ust T2 caution the Department, looking back to the L3 12-month snapshot, f inancial picture of the l4 compdDy, I mean, that can change dramatically t_5 going forward. So I think that has to be taken L6 int,o consideration, too. . Vae t7 DEPUTY SECRETARY FEINBERG . r vv, : 18 that's the dilemma. Yeah , dgain, it's not 19 werre not talking about a cut. Werre talking 20 about less of an increase. 2l REPRESENTATIVE DAIJITY: Thank you. 22 REPRESENTATM BAKER: Thank You, 23 Mr. Da1 1y. That was two minutes to sPare. . t 24 Representative LaGrotta is 25 recogni zed. 2Bs t_ REPRESENTATIVE LAGROTTA: MAY I o= 2 assume, Mr. Chairman, can I have his two minutes? 3 REPRESENTATIVE BAKER: I dON'T 4 believe he yields his two minutes. You may 5 proceed, Mr. I-,aGrotta 6 REPRESENTATM LAGROTTA: Thank You, 7 Mr. Chairman. Secretary Richman, Ilwould be B remiss if I did not begin my questions with .9 saying to you that I have been here for a long l-o time on this committee and sat through. a 1ot of l_L hearings, lived through a 1ot of welfare L2 secretaries, and I am'very glad that you are in 13 charge of this Department. l4 You are exureme -- I find you to be 15 extremely impressive, extremely intelligent, and 15 you radiate compassion for the people that you t7 serve. l_8 And that is something that I find. 19 someLimes in short supply amongst the general 20 population who make your clients a political 2t football because of the need.,to use revenue to 22 serve them ' 23 And I just wanted. to saY that Irm 24 very impressed 25 SECRETARY RICHMAN: Thank You. 286 REPRESENTATM LAGROTTA: with 2 y.ou .ld the compassion that you radiate. 3 And I also wanted to say. to you that 4 don't ever stop asking f or add.itional revenue. 5 Because I would I would suggest, and I would 6 pick up in some respects where my chairman and 7 mentor Dwight Evans left off, by saying if we B could choose to rescind that tax cut in 9 Washington'we could. do COLAs and diet COIJAs and 1o ginger ales for your workers and for. the people Lt that you serve. 12 And don't be afraid, to .ever, l_3 continue to ask us for more money, because I for l4 one will never be afraid to put up a tax vote to 15 give it to you. 16 My question emanates from my own t7 situation in Lawrence and Beaver County where we LB are seeing an awful lot of retirements in case 19 workers. 20 And werre being told by the 2L Employeesr Retirement System that werre - going to 22 see more by the end of this fiscal year 23 Are we going to replace those 24 people? Because my welfare offices and the 25 clients are saying to me the wait list and the 287 l_ overloaded case workers is starting to real1y get 2 to be too much. 3" ' SECRETARY RICHMAN: Are you 4 referring to the the county assistance office 5 staff? 6 REPRESENTATIVE I-,AGROTTA: YCS. 7 SECRETARY RICHMAN: Okay. I tm B visiting county systems office, and they -- they 9 actually are incredibly compassionate people also l_0 in how they care for their clients, and. it's been L1 a terrific experience to travel across the state t2 and visit many of these. l_3 When I usually push them a littIe l4 bit so I can hear their problems. And their l_5 first problem, their first complaint is always L6 about the computer system. They beat me up on a l7 little bit on our IT system. 1B ' REPRESENTATIVE LAGROTTA: Where did 19 that come from? 20 . SECRETARY RICHMAN: I don't know 2L about that. I t 11 sent iL back 22 REPRESENTATIVE LAGROTTA: f '11 help 23 you . ' 24 SECRETARY RICHMA.N: The second issue 25 is often around staffing, whether staff will be 2BB replaced. Th,ey t,aught me the word matrix and I 2 began to ask questions. We evidently have a matrix system to determine how much staff any 4 given county assistance office needs. 5 In'using that system, and having 6 questions about how accurate it is, we are'trying 7 to make sure we work with and listen to the 8 di'rectors in our countiesl assistance of f ice so 9 they make sure, one, theyrre using the tools that 10 we give them correctly, that werre that they 11 are having enough staff to be able to handle the l2 problems and we arenrt generating waiting 1ists. L3 There are places in the state where l4 they are d.own staf f and because of , the rapidity t_5 of the resignations or the retiring of staff we 16 haven I t been able to replace as quickly as we 1"7 wanted to. 18 There are other places where we need 19 those offices tro reorganize to use some of their 20 staff more ef ficiently. 2L But werre trying to be attentive to zz all the staff , understand their pressures. 23 ClearIy, and I will try to be very brief, the 24 county assistance offices are Ehe gateway to DPW 25 .They have to work. These are incred.ibly work : - 289 t hard working people with a task to learn an z amount of information that is about that deep 3 wit,h all the ru1es, regulations, f ederal t eligibility standards it takes to get the right 5 number of clients to the right amount of service. 6 It is a tremendously difficult job, 7 and Irm not sure most people und.erstand how 8 difficult a job it is. 9 So I want to preserve these people. L0 I want to take good care of them and I want to 11 make sure they have the tooLs to do their job.' t2 REPRESENTATIVE I,AGROTTA: ANd I 13 recognize that and appreciate it. What I just I4 want to stress to you is is that the stress level 15 for these case workers that carry a normal load 16 is extremely high t7 I have spent time there. And it is 1B very, very dif f icult on a d.aiIy basis. When 19 they're overload.ed and they have more cases than 20 t,hey can handle, their stress 1eve1 goes through 2L the roof,'and just by virtue of the fact that 22 there's only so many minuted in an hour and so 23 many hours in a dry, so many clients just don't 24 get served. 25 SECRETARY RICHMAN: And I do know 290 1 you have Beaver, Butler, and Lawrence. And Irve z gone to one of those. And I will make sure we 3 d.ouble - check and. make sure and see where those 4 counties are in terms of their complements and 5 are they - - are they in danger of long waiting 6 1ists, because I donrt want that. 7 REPRESENTATIVE LAGROTTA: Thank you B very much. 9 REPRESENTATIVE BAKER: Irm next. 10 I.rm Representative Matt Baker. Madam Secretary, 11 my first question is with regard to the c.ommunity l2 access fund.. And I know that's really a 13 bud.getary matter that shouLd be taken up with the l4 . budget secretary, and will probably be L5 questioning him about that tomorrow L6 But this is a very important issue l7 to inner city hospitals, as welL as rural 1B hospitals, such as mine, that are rea1ly critical 19 access hospitals that have tremendous 20 disproportionate share figures and uncompensated 2T care amounLs 22 And I just can't stress how 23 important it is that we try to get this fund.ing 24 back in the budget . I t ' s been a v.ery popul ar 25 budget j.tem in the past, and Irm hoping that we 297 L can work together to restore that funding for 2 nospr_trars. 3 SECRETARY RICHMAN: My belief is as 4 we work together, those dollars will probably 5 find their way back .Right, 6 REPRESENTATIVE BAKER: right. 7 My next question involves disease management and Irve had a great discussion with Deputy Secretary 9 David Feinberg. l_0 DE PUTY SE CRETARY . FE T NB ERG : LL Feinberg L2 REPRESENTATIVE BAKER:. Feinberg. 13 DEPUTY SECRETARY FEINBERG: Yes. . t4 REPRESENTATIVE BAKER: ] PaTdon me. 15 And he had indicated some of the work that. they l_6 had been doing and what they hope to be able to t7 accomplish. 1B I think this program has potential L9 great opportunity to improve Pennsylvaniars 20 Commonweal th c i t, i zens ' heal- th, dt the same t ime 2T saving substantial amounts of money, as some 22 states have already moved toward this. I know' 23 Florida and Pfizer and some providers and some 24 other organizations are moving in the direction 25 of disease management and it just seems to me a 292 1 win/win, improve t,he Medicaid health clientele 2 and reduce costs in the emergency room :3 admissions, medication, drugs. 4 It sounds like it has great 5 opportunity to make a substantive difference in 6 the health of t,he Commonwealth and uo save : 7 d.ol l ars . B CouId you just summarize very 9 q-uickly where we are with that? L0 SECRETARY RICHMAN: I will start it l_L and Dave Feinberg can fill in. one of the things l2 that David has been charged with is totally 13 changing our fee-for-service system. ' l4 Hets doing a total- rehaul of it. L5 Wetve hired staff to begin to -- that werve 16 hi-red. Hets been on staff several months now. t7 We are taking a change in our fee-for-service L8 system from A Lo Z. l_9 Part of that change will be 2o 'implementing a disease management system so that 21- we can move, because that is the wave of the 22 future . 23 werve held managed care for these 24 rural areas that are 25 fee-for-service system in abeyance for at least 293 1 two years as we begin to look at disease 2 management. And we will also be looking just as 3 seriously at the primary care physician + management model that goes along with the disease 5 management . David. 6 DEPUTY SECRETARY FEINBERG: I don't 7 know that I reaIIy have much to add oth.er than as 8 we discussed, we are looking at 9 sa.id, a primary care case management system and. L0 having disease management be an absolutely 11 integral part of that. l2 And. as werve talked about it more 13 and more, weIre actually expanding the number of 14 diseases that we think would be appropriate for 15 d.isease management programs in the beginning. So 16 we are also very enthusiastic about it, as we t7 di scus sed. LB REPRESENTATIVE BAKER: Could you 19 j ust mention the f our or f ive d.iseases that 20 yourre trying to target? 2t DEPUTY SECRETARY FEINBERG: YES, 22 diabetes. 23 SECRETARY RICHMAN: Asthma. I 24 DEPUTY SECRETARY FEINBERG: Asthma, 25 congestive heart failure, high risk pregnancies 294 1 are rea1ly the big four. 2 REPRE S ENTAT I VE BAKER : Ve ry good . 3 Thank you. Appreciate your work in that + My final questi orr, and. I rea1ly 5 appreciate your bringing up the issue earlier, as 6 regard i ng aut i sm. 7 Irve had a number of meetings in my B. office r.ecently with parents that have children 'autism. 9 that have They've had tremendous success l_0 in the therapies that have been prescribed. But Ll_ unfortunately and recently they are dealing with I2 this issue of medical necessity and the intensiuy t3 level is not any longer prescribed, and so some t4 of them have filed appeals, some have not. 15 But nevertheless, they believe that 15 the condition of those children now will d.igress 1,7 and go downhill instead of continue to progress. 18 So I know you have a task force and 19 a very large task force that has been brought 20 together to try to address E.his issue. What can 2t you te11 'me about the issue of medical necessit,y 22 and'the task force and this whole issue"of 23 aut i sm? 24 . SECRETARY RICHMAN: You' know, I'rr 25 going to eventually getr myself into big trouble. 295 L My deputy secretary from OMHSAS is looking at me 2 so Irm. going to turn this-1^.: ^ way. 3 This is a very big issue'for'me and ,4 Irve long been an advocate that children and 5 families need to receive the services that are 6 approprj-ate to keep them from to more .going 7 expenses and more extreme services. I In some cases, this means that 9 therers a medical necessity need. Sometimes we 10 need.to get in and provide that d.epth of services L1 when the medical necessity is not as obvious. 1,2 I believe we treat the child and the 13 f amtt" that's in f ront of us wj-th the services L4 they require. As the subcommittee reports come 15 in rom the Autism .Task Force, we will be taking .f 'thi 16 a very, very hard look at where s f all s and t7 whet,her it is a relevant statement for. children L8 with autism. 19 At this point, as necessa.ry, I 20 encourage families to continue their appeal 2I process. I encourage t,hem to be the. best 22 advocates and fighters for their children. 23 And the system in autism will 24 significantly change, not only for children, but 25 it will also change for those for the adults 296 1 with autism based on the system they have right o 2 now. 3 But we have to change how we do 4 business in autism. Itrs not working for t,he 5 famil-ies and it's not working for the children. 6 REPRESENTATIVE BAKER: ThANK. you 7 very much, Madam Secretary. GentLemen, 8 Mr. Wheatley -- Mr. Wheatley is recognized 9 REPRESENTATIVE WHEATLEY: Thank'you, 10 Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, Madam. Secretary.. t-1 I must say I concur with a lot of my colleagues 12 today. It is an honor and. pleasure to have you L3 overseeing this Department, because the needs are l4 so great, and the person that should be steering l_5 the ship has to have some understanding, some 16 compassion for these people and some know-how how t7 to rea11y service them and. deliver the services 1B that they need and the care that they need. So t9 frm. very honored to have you there. 20 SECRETARY RICHMAN: Thank you. 21 REPRESENTATIVE WHEATI-rEY: I have 22 some questrions, and Irm hoping if I- canrt get 23 them all in, I can get a response from you via 24 writing about some of them 25 one is dealing with the $10 million 297 1 cut I think to PennDOT allocation from your o 2 Department, I think it was going to"wards reversed 3 commute, job training things, like that, to help as a supplement. .4 , 5 I want know, one, what tYPe of 6 oversight do you have over thos"e dollars and what 7 the counties are doing with those do11ars. B Two I rm sorry. It wasntt a $ 10 9 million do1lar cut it was a 3 mi11ion. l_0 SECRETARY RICHMAN: $3 mil1ion, 1L thatrs correct. t2 REPRESENTATIVE WHEATI-rEY: Two, how L3 do you evaluate if what t,he counLy is using t'hose t4 dolLars for is actually working for those l_5 families, and is actually taking families to and l_6 from work and that type of thing. t7 And three, if we can get a list of 1B what those counties are using or do you'have a l_.9 list of what those counties are using those 20 d.o1lars f or, specif ica11y Irm looking f or 2T Allegheny County. 22 Second is the Itm going to have a 23 quest,ion concerning the county assistance offices 24 and the consolidation. I know in Allegheny 25 County yourre doing some consolidation. 298 1 Itd like to know if those emPloYees 2 there will be impacted relating to some layoffs, 3 where are'those offices moving to, if yourre .} moving offices. Irm aware, I think you are 5 lookirg, at least now you may have signed some 6 leases. I want to know where those offices are 7 going to be moved to; and when you evaluate the 8 move, that you take into account where most of 9 the services for people who are comj-ng in for the L0 services live and what the impact may be for them L1 getting to locations. .new t2 If that means theY're going to be 13 taking three or four new buses or one bus is L4 going to get them there, are.you going to locate 15 themlin that areas that theyrre coming from. I L6 wou1d like to know that and maybe even if you t7 have the list of where theytre moving to I would 18 like to see the list 19 And I think there was one other 20 question regarding the issue of I forgot 2t already, so. 22 SECRETARY RICHMAN: I-,et me take Lhe 23 Allegheny County Assistance Office first'. 24 There are the Northern Office in 25 Ehe North County Office are located in the same 299 1_ building at the opposite ends of the b1ock. They 2 each 3 downtown Pittsburgh. They each office operate 4 They operate .5 entirely separatefy. Wetre going to unite those 6 t,wo. 7 REPRESENTATIVE WHEATI-,EY: And it ' s B going Lo stay 9 L0 going to' begin to have combined - - combined these tl_ offices because we believe we can improve the t2 efficiency of it by having the two offices become L3 one. So it's that kind t_'4 The Eastern and Susquehanna District 15 Offices are in East Liberty. Werre going to do 16 the same thing. rn other words, again, .we have 1-7 one building, two offices. We are going to 18 achieve better utilization of staff and.resources L9 by taking those two of f ices and making .them one. ' 20 So those are the process that werre 2T gor-ng to use in Allegheny County. 22 ' The transportation issue is a 1ittle 23 more compLex. And it is $3 million, not 7. And : 24 we d.o work with the Department of Transportation. 25 And itrs the TANF dollars that we're reallocating 300 1 in thi s case . ,i 2- DEPUTY SECRETARY NARDONE: f : mean ' 3 the basic contex! for why we would reduce funding 4 or withd.rew some of the fund.ing for that program 5 is the imbalance that currently exists in the 5 , TANF funding program, which I think you have some 7 charts attached to the testimony that the B secret,ary hand.ed out which basically shows that 9 we ----af l-0 . at what t,he annual allocation of dollars that we 11 get for TANF funding. T2 So what we tried to do this Year is 13 begin to m.ake a down payment, in a wdY,'towards 14 trying to get our programs back into balance. 15 And I think the SecretarY could 16 speak very.eloquently, and we all recognize'the ' programs in of I7 importance of transportation .terms L8 servans werr";;"r";."::"'r""."t" L9 year,s budser is 20 we reduced the funding in that TANF line item 2t from l-0 to 7 million. Basj-ca11y what the funding 22 programs go to is there is about 6.4 million that 23 gets allocated to SEPTA in Philadelphia, ds well 24 as Allegheny County, the trans,portation agency. 25 That basically goes to fund expanded public 301 transit routes that connect residential areas to 2 sites of employment. 3 In addit,ion, funding is provided to 4 45 other counties, the other 3.5 million. And 5 generally they use that to fund. spPcific 6 progrlms, unique to their individ'ua1 1oca1ity. 7 And we couId. certainly provide you additional -$ information about that. We provide the' fund to 9. the'Department of Transportation' a.nd then work wj-th thgm in terms of implementing those 1l- programs . t2 SECRETARY RICHMAN: We wi'11 give you 13 the rest of the information in detail in t4 A1 1 egheny County in a written format so you can L5 have that 16 REPRESENTATIVE WHEATI,EY: Thank you. 1,7 REPRESENTATIVE BAKER :. 1B Representative'JerrY Stern. 19 REPRESENTATIVE STERN: Thanks, 20 Mr Chairman.' Good afternoon, Secretary. 2l SECRETARY RICHMAN: GOOd AfTCTNOON. 22 REPRESENTATIVE STERN: . I wanted to 23 discuss the initiative you have with expanding 24 the home and community-based services for p.eople 25 with disabil ities. And it appears that werve had 302 1 much discussion today on using f ederaL d'o11ars, 2 ,'discretionary dollars that to utilize the 3 state dollars to the grbatest extent possible. 4 And it appears that your plan is using new 5 federal dollars that.are generated from an'ICFMR 6 assessment to help pay for t'he home and 7 community-based services B What Irm wondering, and just looking 9 at it from how werve already discussed the 1_0 nursinq home assessment, some of the situations LL werve "run . into with that wiuh the federal t2 do11ars, is how can you guarantee expansion for o 13 these. community service with this questionable L4 possible funding source? Is that money that you . 15 can pret,ty weL l guarantee or where are you 16 getting that moneY? t7 SBCRETARY RICHMAN: This particular 1B one, the MR assessment, is probably one of. the 19 easiest. Itrs probably one that's going to be 'It 20 one of the Jess complicaEed. doesD't, again, 2L this one doesn't take legislation. It wiIl' 22 probably be one that will be not one of the most 23 difficult ones for us. oh, this one does get 24 legislationr sorry. It doesn't take it 'approval, 25 doesnrt take CMS I trt sorry; So we 303 1 don't have to go back to CMS on this one as we 2 did on the nursing home. 3 REPRESENTATIVE STERN: How about the 4 6 percent assessment? What is that being what 5 are you assessing? 6 DE PUTY SECRETARY ROSSKOPF: The 6 7 percent assessmenL will be the revenues, the 6 t' percent of revenues of the private intermediate q care facilities. 10 REPRESENTATIVE STERN And that's 11 where you t re getting your dollars to expand the I2 services? 13 DEPUTY SECRETARY ROSSKOPF: Thatrs L4 where we. wi1 1 get the dollars to bring in to r_5 essentially earn the federal dollars to let us 15 then look at and provide the expansion. t7 REPRESENTATIVE STERN: BUI that goes 18 back to my previous question how certain are l_9 those federal dollars. 20 DEPUTY SECRETARY ROSSKOPF: As the 2t Secretary has indicated, Lhis is one of the less 22 controversial and less difficult assessments to 23 carry out. 24 I - - can we guarantee you that those l 25 dolLars are there? No. 304 L Do we think we have a better - - more 2 reasonable chance of gebting this than some of 3 the other proposals thaE are on the table? Yes, .; 4 we do. 5 REPRESENTATM STERN: And I know in 6 the past, in past budget hearings.werve discussed 7 wiuh other bud.get secretaries, and I bel ieve you l I as we11, Secretary Richman, wet"ve discussed 9 respite in services with people with "care 10 disabilit j-es. And I do want you to comment on 1_l_ that as to where that stands and where you see 12 that headed. t3 SECRETARY RICHMAN: I see one way or I4 another werre going to provide respite services. 15 It is an absolute need. it is preventive need. We 16 can get respite services to families early on and t7 whether those are families with children with 18 disabilities, f amilies that have adult child'ren L9 that ?re keeping them at home, the longer when 20 we can provide respite we take the pressure off 2t the family. Folks are able to remain at home, 22 folks are able to remain community based, and we 23 save ourselves do1lars. Thatrs one of the'places 24 I -- we have to go. That one, and at least'in 25 some of our plans we'11 take a state plan 305 ' tm 1 ainend.ment and*we will go there.. , f com.mitted to l 2 that one J 4 proposals, do you have any proposals in your 'budget any D €ot this year'Lhat would require tl statutory or regulatory language or action by the 7 leoislature? 8 SECRETARY RICHMAN: The Ewo 9 assessments will require that, both of the l_0 assessmenUs. LL REPRESENTATM STERN: When You're L2 deal ing .wit,h the respite care , dre you are you -working 13 with other departments, other nonprofits 1,4 or faith-based organizations in providing any of 15 those services ? 16 SECRETARY RICHMAN: Other t7 department we ' l-8 REPRESENTATIVE STERN: No, w.ith -- r_9 respite, say with resPite or antY of Your any 20 of your other things, are you looking au working 2t , with other deparL,ments in providing' services? 22 Yourre opening it up to working wit'h 23 people with disabilit'ies. Are you .looking at 24 working with any other d'epartments, like 25 nonprofits, for example, specialty groups that 305 1 . deal with specific issues, maybe an autism group 2 or something like that? 3 SBCRETARY RICHMAN: We11, as -- Irm --'th 'sector 4 as sumr-ng you mean wL the provider or 5 community partners as opposed'it Department of 6 Education or Department of Aging. 7 REPRESENTATIVE STERN: I rm j ust B referring to groups in the community when 9 providing services for, whether it's home 10 services or whatever 1l_ SECRETARY RICHMAN: When we when l2 we think about respite or any community-based L3 service, all of it works with through the offices l4 of either the Office of Children, Youth, and 15 Families, the Office of Mental Health Substance 1_6 Abuse Services, or the Office of Mental L7 Retardation. A11 of them work with their L8 providers; they work with consumers; they work L9 with family members. 20 And t,hi s woul d be done in 2L n.rt.nership with Lhose groups to help us both 22 define, set policy around how we proceed with it. 23 For the Office of Ment,aI HeaIth and Substance 24 Abuse Services, if they put it within their 25 medical assistance dollars where it wou1d.be. It 307 l_ would take a state plan amendment lnd we would 2 work together to make sure that happened with the J Office of Medical Assistance. 4 REPRESENTATM STERN: Is the 5 Department workitg, there was much discussion 6 severaL years ago with faith-based organizations. . 7 Are you doing anything working with faith-based B organizations providing any services to 9 individ.uals in the community? 10 SE CRETA: RY RICHMAN: I struggled with 1l- how always to answer that question when I was L2 working in Philadelphia, because the reality is 13 we do a lot of work with f aitLr based, but it 14 depends on how we look at it. 15 Probably one of the largest 16 contractors t,hat when we give money to a count1r r t7 just about every county will have a contract with l_B Catholic Services. Now, do You call the work r-9 . they do with. Catholic Services 20 organization or is that seen as a provider 2T organization? 22 23 programs with Representative Wheatley in 24 Allegheny County where the county money from the 25 state was going to many faith-based organizations 308 1 within the cadre of children, Youth, and family. 2 And they were doing everything from adoption work 3 to counseling. T So it realIy depends on how we. 5 characterize it, you know. But there are a 1ot 6 of church, faith-based organizations that get 7 money from counties who get monies from us t,hat 8 work very intensely wit,hin all of our 9 programmatic areas. 10 REPRESENTATM STERN: And I would l_L think, I'rl just looking at this from a'teamwork T2 sense and trying uo make sure that all the 13 resources are utilized to the greatest extent 14 possible L5 And I thank you for Your honestY and t6 your forthright approach to dealing with these t7 issues and your enthusiasm. I agree with L8 everything that Representative LaGrotta said 1-9 earlier up to the point about the tax cuts at the 20 federal government. I do appreciate the fact 2I that they did have tax cutb. So thank you. 22 SECRETARY RICHMAN: Thank You. ,' 23 REPRESENTATIVE BAKER :- 24 Representat,ive Phyllis Mundy is' recognized. 25 REPRESENTATIVE MUNDY: Thank You. 309 1 Thank you, Madam Secretary, for being here this 2 afternoon. 3 . SECRETARY RICHMAN: Thank You. + REPRESENTATfVE MUNDY: I wouldn't 5 n.t", your job for all the money in the wor1d. 6 What a compl icated bud^get you deal with. 7 I want to kind of switch gears for a I minute. And. I don't think werre ever going to be .9 able to come up with enough dollars to meet all 10 the needs.. Af ter having said that, I think there Ll- are some things that we can do to mitigate the L2 need'for those dollars. 13 And one thing that I have found so t4 frustrating over the last *Sty years, six, seven L5 years - - when the economy started to go bad, my 16 hopes were pretty much dashed. - - but over the 17 years when we were 1itera11y rollingr I - - inJ - dou9h,I - -- we 18 failed to invest, heavily in some of the programs 19 that could have been saving us money. by now. And 20 I'm referring to the early childhood programs, 2t the nurse home visiting programs, other home 22 visiting programs, the parent.-child home prograF 23 which came on very late in the Ridge-Rende11 24 or Ridge-Schweiker administration and now is 25 be ing f aced wi t,h ext inct ion . 31_0 t_ ,:Whi 1e t,he parent - chi 1d home program, 2 I - - anyway. 3 . SECRETARY RICHMAN: Yeah. 4 REPRESENTATIVE MUNDY: All of these 5 types of programs that keep families together, 6 that. obviate the need for out-of-home placement, .7 which is very expensive and which we.can never B find enough foster families for these kids 9 the all of the child health issues, keeping 10 chiLdren well instead of curing them when they 1t get sick, prevention of child abuse; on and on t2 and on. l_3 And it just is starting to frustrate l4 the. daylights out of me that we can never get to , l_5 the prevention mode. 16 And I want to know, you know, what .t7 are we going to do and how are we gor.ng tro 1B begin I mean, you canrt take - - you canrt take L9 the money away from kids who ar€: in trouble now. 20 I und.erstand that. 21 And certainly the MH/MR problem 2.2 with,'Vou know, the workers 23 workers needing a COLA is a huge probl em . And 24 that probably isn't going to change with the 25 nurse home visitinq. 311 l_ But there are a lot of programs 2 where we: can be saving 1ot,s and money if we Jots 3 wouJ-cr. sr-mpry begin to invest more heavily in + prevent i on . . 5 So could you show me in the budget 6 where werre doing that? I look at the nurse home .7 visiting Line item and I see a cut. And, You 8 know, Itve had that conversation with my buddy 9 Allen Cohen, and you through him. And I know l-o that yourre committ,ed to these program-s, but it l_1 just seems like it's such it"s such a fight to t2 get them funded. 13 SECRETARY RICHMAN: It has been a t4 fight to get some of these very good prevention L5 programs funded. There there are several 16 shifts in the budget where werve taken money from T7 one categorical area and put it in another to l_8 preserve the program because we think the dollars 19 that they were in could be at risk. Some of the 20 things were in the TANF category or in areas 2t where the dollars were being moved. 22 did discover after you brought it 23 to'our attention t,hat some of those dollars could 24 have affected, w€ didn't think they were going to 25 necessarily affect the nurse partnership program, 3L2 1 but. there enough concern that I said I want 2 to make sure that where we put them therers a 3 hundred percent of the dollars going to be there, 4 and absolutely none of those programs are going 5 to be at risk 6 As you know, some of those 7 p rograms B REPRESENTATIVE MUNDY: Includ.ing, 9 are we including parent-child home now? 1o SECRETARY RICHMAN: ATE 11 includ.ing? We I re including the parent - child home 1,2 programs now, WaYne? L3 DEPUTY SECRETARY STEVENSON: We have T4 those f unded with t,he other f ed.eral do1lars. 15 SECRETARY RICHMAN: A11 of the 16 programs are going to be in'there, but I want to L7 make sure this time we have your language right L8 so therers no misunderstanding 19 Part of it part'of our 20 expectation and working with the nurse 2t partnership programs is that they would work with 22 us to as some of. the federal dollars went 23 down, to replace those do1lars. .Where that has 24 happened, w€ will continue to work with them. 25 But Irm also aware that in cases, if 313 L they can't do that, I don't want to put the 2 program at risk. If we can have if they are 3 finding doLlars for match and they're working wit,h their f ramework and don't need as many of 5 our dollars, then I want to expand the mode1. 6 Prevention is how we keep from spending so many 7 d.ol l ars on the deep end . B The Governor has spoken quite 9 passionately also on the need. to focus on zero to 10 five. If we can make sure that we have solid L1 child care, if we make sure that the health t2 health and safety and education of children 13 comes together as a whole in zero to five, in T4 fact, I also say minus nine to five. If we can 15 have a heal thy bi rth and we can get thi s chi ld.ren 16 to age five healthy, safe, and ready to 1earn, t7 then our probability of needing to go to deep end 1B services goes down. We don't eliminate it. L9 Irve visited several counties in 20 Pennsylvania, ffiost1y very sma1l counties, who 2L actually begin to integrate their services in 22 ways that make sense. 23 They have children and youth around 24 the tabIe, MR, aging, mental retardation, medical 25 assistance . They have al l the part,ners . 314 1 They have made. a significant o 2 di f ference when they intervene early. 3 We need to look at:those modeLs and 4 figure out how we expand them. We have no choice 5 but to. go to prevention. o '. We11, I' 7 appreciate your commitment to that . And I mean, U .Irve been working on these issues for'many, many. ' v years with Pat Brown in the House and Charlie 'l_ 0 Dent in the SenaEe. 11 And we absolutely have to begin to t2 get there at a faster rate becauso, again, we o 13 will never outgrow the voracious appetite for '1,4 dollars in some of these programs that are so -- 15 I mean, w€ know what happens to kids who are'in 16 placement, you know,. change placements two and 17 Ehree times during the course of their childhood. LB years; I mean, j-t's j ust devastating, And we L9 could do such a much better job but we have to 20 find those dollars and begin to move them. 2L So I look forward to working with 22 you and I thank you very much for your commitment 23 to that i. s sue . I 24 REPRESENTATIVF BAKER: 25 Representative ,Jef f Habay is recognized.. q--lrr- 3 1_5 'iREPRESENTATM HABAY.: Thank you 2 very much, Mr. Chairman. Madam. Secretary, thank 3 you very much for coming today. I do agree'with 4 Representative Mundy. You have a very difficult 5 job. ft is one I would not want. f congratulate 6 you on trying to do the best you can with it. 7 SECRETARY RICHMAN: Thank you. EPRESENTATIVE HABAY: I j ust want 9 to ask you and put it from this perspective, 10 because I realize Repreientative Cappelli and 11 Representative Evans and I believe Representative t2 Stern asked a number of questions on MH/UR and. 13 the COLA. t4 I remember Shaler township, 15 Pennsylvania.where I live , about 3O,OOO peopl.e Ib bordering the City of Pittsburgh, and to put it t7 in perspective, I have three major fast food 18 restaurants in the middle of Shaler Townstrip I 19 have a Burger King. I have McDonald'. I also 20 have a Taco 8e11. 2T You have people there that work very 22 hard. What Irm worried about is the MH/MR 23 workers j-n my district, many of them make less 24 than the people that are working there in those 25 fast food restaurants. And they have an 315 1_ extraordinary challenge ahead of them . And' 2 nothing against those people working in those 3 restauralt", those young and middle- aged people 4 work hard. But those people are out there day after day trying to fight to keep somebody alive 6 in many cases and in challenging sit,uations. 7 And we do have over a billion 8 dollars in-revenue increases that we have seen 9 this year 10 Certainly we have 350,000 people 11 that are mentally challenged that are out there. l2 C.ertar.nly we can do more to try to help them. I 1'3 Know you answered the question very in depth. L4 What I would like to ask is this: 15 What can we do in terms of the long-range 1,6 solution to help? I know that you have to make t7 difficult decisions on budgetary matters on many L8 things in the Department. 19 What can we do long term to helP 20 these people out that really need our help? 2t Because I believe that whaL my grandmother once 22 told us, that we are going to be judged one day 23 on how we treat the least among us and how can we 24 treat these foIks. 25 SECRETARY RICHMAN: This is an area 3L7 t'1r" given actually a 1ot of different kind of 2 thought to, and how d.o we get a .f unding source in ? to this so that it's continuing and it begins to 4 create a poU of dolLars we can draw upon. 5 6 I was looking at that mode1. What could we 7 create out there that you know, w€ canrt go to B the lottery. Thatts already dedicated. 9 But are there any other pools or L0 other things we could create I hate to use the 11 word tax - - or tax or what can we. create that 12 would give us a continuing pot of d.oll-ars to do 13 this. I4 I think we need to work with You in l_5 terms of thinking up something creative. Werve. 16 E,axe cl tobacco heavily, in fact, to the point. that 17 people are not smoking as much and that pot of 1B money is going down L9 Are there other ways that we can 20 think about generating a pot of dollars that wilI 21- continue to fund this? I havenrt come up with 22 the, you know, the solution Yet, but I think itrs 23 something we all need to brainstorm. We need to 24 determine what will the taxpayers of Pennsylvania 25 accept, what - - what i s out there t'hat is a 318 L reasonabLe objective for us to reach to to be 2 able to generate the $35 million every year, ot 3 more, that we would need to continue to fund a 2 .*. percent COLA for the for the population that 5 werre concerned about. 6 That we compete. with McDonaldrs and 7 the fast food restaurants, and I rm not even B we've lost that competition. Itrs whateverrs 9 under that. At least in Philadelphia, that may l_0 be a litt1e different from some of the areas, we 1,L lost it competing with the fast food restaurants t2 a long time ago. They outrated us. ' t3 So what can we PuL in P1ace that get l4 us the kind of dollars we need to increase this 15 base? 16 REPRESENTATIVE HABAY: WC Wi1]- lOOK T7 forward to working with you on t,hat. We hope 18 that is a point of negotiation for you. l_9 The only other question I have 20 concerns - - and I won't read the letter in the 2t interest of time here, but I,have a letter 22 from in my hand from the Pennsylvania Hunger 23 Action Center in Harrisburg and also just I 24 met wit,h a number of my folks with the community 25 food bank in Pittsburgh. We have five members 319 L from the appropriations committee here from 2 Allegheny County, both democrat and republican. 3 We work with them constantly. ll The issue of what theyrre facing, 5 brought up the status with the agriculture 6 secretary the other d.y, that they've reduced the 7 state food purchase line item. It used to be 8 L?.8 million back in budget year 1998 -'99. 9 That's been reduced down to about L6.45 mil1ion. 10 And what werre dealing with right now, if you LL look at the U.S. trends that have happengd in t2 Pennsylvania, about 23 percent increase in those t_3 that are hungry right now. We havb reaIIy seen L4 that in Allegheny County where there have been 15 more foreclosures there since the worst days in 16 the steel industry and the j ob loss there. 1-7 opefully if ther.ers anything that 1B can be done from your Department, we need Eo 19 restore those fund.s for the food bank. I.rve seen 20 this at critical 1eve1s. This is my fourth 2t Governor. Irve never seen t,he level of people 22 coming to my office in tears not being able to 23 get food on the tab1e. 24 What can we do to address this? 25 SECRETARY RICHMAN: We actually have 320 L a fairly serious problem right now with the food 2 banks and with our food and nutrition program. 3 The dollars that go to the food 4 .stamp go to food banks, come through our food 5 stamp and our nutriuion program directly from the 6 federal government. 7 We add there is some match, and B itts. the issue around what werre using for match 9 right now that puts some dolLars in Pennsylvania 10 at risk L1 Werre working with our partners in t2 the federal government again. Werve had good 13 support from our Senators in trying to reach out 14 to the fed.eraL government and help them 15 understand. and do some negotiat,ion. 16 t7 okay, but wetre going to have to push some 18 envelopes pretty hard. with the fed.eral g-overnment 19 to make sure werre heard. And'we'LI be relying 20 pretty heavily on Senators Santorum and 2L Senatbrs and Senator Specter to be able to d.o 22 this. ' 23 So any support in partnership we can 24 have with you would be good. 25 REPRESENTATIVE HABAY: Thank you 32t 1 very much. 2 . CHAIRMAN ARGALL: Always looking for J recurring themes. And that seems to be one' right 4 there t,hat we rve heard a good bi t about today. 5 Repr.esentative Walko . 6 REPRESENTATIVE WALKO: Thank you, 7 Mr. Chairman and Madam Secretary. The theme does B go on, and I just want to mention., for the 9 record., that I have direct care workers in my L0 district who convinced me that if this is not 11 ad.dressed that the entire system will- collapse. t2 So I echo all colleagues of mine who 13 were so eloquent in describing the problem and t4 somd possible solutions. 15 One possibLe.i l^1 ^ solution^^1..F.i was brought up 16 by.Representative Baker as far as money, and that L7 is, I believe, disease management. 1B And I read over a report from , l_9 Florida. I understand they do it with heafth 20 education classes, one-on-one consultation,. 2t telephone counseling, and, for example, t,hat 22 effort reduced heart failure by 43 to 4Z pgrcent, 23 reduced hypertension by 48 percent of patients 24 with high blood pressure, and reduced the rates 25 of diabetes 322 l_ And I think that we -- I would 2 encourage the Department to really look into 3 managed disease management. 4 SECRETARY RfCHMAN: We are 5 absolutely. committed. Werve hired someone and 6 this system is already changing. We have an 7 absolute commitment in our fee-for-service. system to go to a disease management model and' use a 9 primary care model. 10 REPRESENTATM WALKO: Wonderful. l_L SECRETARY RICHMAN: That train is t2 already moving. 13 REPRESENTATIVE WALKO: OkaY. Wel1, T4 I:* sorry I missed it. with regard to some of t-5 the other cost, I notice there's $43 million t6 increase in pharmaceutical average unit costs T7 thatrs part, of an overall increase of about 55 1B miLlion to pay for projected inflationary 19 increases. 20 And I was wondering, f know 2t Mr. Feinberg could address this, if there are any 22 endeavors or approaches to dealing with 23 mechanisms to save on prescripLion drugs, for o 24 example the 340 B federal regulation therets a 25 discount program. I wonder if the Depa.rtment is 323 1 looking into that. 2 SECRETARY RICHMAN: Let me start J this one and have the deputy secretary do a + littIe bit more detail. The Governor has 5 actually taken the lead on working with the 6 pharmaceutical companies around controlling the 7 growth in this area. This is a major area for l B the for all of the departments -- aging is 9 one, the Department of Public Welfare, the 10 prison the correction system, and State 1l_ Employeesr Benefit, Fund t2 So werre all beginning to work at 13 how do we get better control on the increase in L4 pharmacy. 15 It is one of the largest it is 1"6 the second largest item in the DPW budget. L7 The Governor has met with six of the 1B larg'est CEOrs of the pharmaceutical- companies. 19 They have said they wil] work with us. 20 He is telling them that 2t Pennsylvania's not going to Canada. Werre going 22 to they are very large corporate partners with 23 us. We need them to stay with their business in 24 Pennsylvania. But we need them to be partners in 25 terms' of their costs. 324 l_ So he will be leading much of it, 2 much of the initiative in overseeing it. We will 3 be working hand in hand. And David. Feinberg is *A my representative to the Governorts group around 5 how .do we control pharmaceutical costs. b REPRESENTATf VE WAIJKO: Excel lent . 7 And I know the FDA is starLing to crack d.own in B any case with regard Lo reimportating 9 reimporting drugs from Canada. But along those' 1-O 1ines, I believe the discounts that are available t- t_ through the 340 B program are lower than Canadian T2 prices; is that correct, Mr. Feinberg? L3 DEPUTY SECRETARY FEINBERG: Irm not t4 sure what the Canadian prices are, but the 340(B) 15 program discounts there about 5O percent off the 16 average wholesale price. t7 As you and I've talked a little bit, 1B we are very interested in using the 340 (B) 19 program, both in our managed or our 20 fee:for-service program and.in our nursing home 2t program. 22 In nursing homes, the 80,000 PeoPle 23 we have in nursing homes receive a lot of drugs. 24 And werre looking at a more efficient way of 25 purchas ing t.hose drugs. 325 1 But in addition, w€ are Iooking at a z number of mechanisms to make sure that 3 utilization is appropriate in the pharmacy area. 4 We will probably expand our prior 5 authorization programs, do a better job at both 6 predrug utilization' review and postdrug utilization review processes than we have, and a also Look at the payments that weIre making Fa 9 pharmacies. Wetre going to have to take a I ook L0 at that also in 2OO6 pharmacies und'er the l- l_ medicare program will receive a drug benefit', as t2 you know, at AWP minus 15 percent. We pay APW o 13 minus 10 percent. A less of a discount, so werre L4 going to have.to be taking a look at'that'also. 15 REPRESENTATIVE WALKO: With regard. L6 to t,he 34 0 (B) program, has the pharmaceutical L7 industry or has the administration been talking 1B with the industry about that program and its 19 applications to nursing homes and fee for 20 service? 2t DEPUTY SECRETARY FEINBERG: Yes, we 22 have . ' 23 REPRESENTATIVE wALKO: And theY're 24 cooperat ive . 25 DEPUTY SECRETARY FEINBERG: Yes. 326 L REPRESENTATIVE WALKO: Thank'You, z Mr. Chairman and Madam Speaker --, I mean Madam 3 Secretary. 4 CHAIRMAN ARGALI-,: Representative 5 Myers. 6 REPRESENTATM MYERS: Over here. 7 Thank y.ou , Mr . Cha i rman . Over here, this way. 8 Hey , bo s.s . :. 'Yes, 9 SECRETARY RICHMAN: how are L0 you? :. 11 REPRESENTATIVE MYERS: I rm fine. A 'I t2 1ittle something slows you here, You know. 13 used to work f or Secretary R j-chman. t4 SECRETARY RfCHMAN: Quite a few 15 y.ears ago. L6 REPRESENTATIVE MYERS: Yeah, and t7 bo.th of us ended up being in Harrisburg. We got L8 to stop meeting like this. 19 : ' You know, I certainly want to saY 20 that I'y. been inspired by your passion for many, 2t many years, which you know based on the proj ect 22 we worked on around MH/MR. And r know it's been 23 a passion before you-even came to Pennsylvania. 24 And Ifm pleasantlY surPrised that 25 people are beginning to learn how passionate you 327 are as it, relates to putting people first and 2 helping people. 3 That is certainly a qualitY that we + needed here in Harri sburg f or a whi l-e . our last 5 secretary, even though he was very friend'1y, some 6 of the, you know, human service interests sort of 7 fe11 through the cracks, I think, in some tJ regards. 9 I am convinced that if therers any L0 way you can find resources to help our workers l_1 serve. their congumers that You, in f act, are T2 going to do it." Therers no question in my mind L3 about it. 14 And I know itrs a difficult task. l-5 And having t,hat init,ial experience that we both 16 had in Philadelphia, the 1eve1 of burnout that 17 comes along with trying to provide supports and LB services to people with d.isabil ities is not a new 19 phenomena. 20 But I do believe that. creative 2t energy that you have, that you want to reduce the 22 turnover and provide the kind of programming that 23 will ensure that direct service workers stay 24 committ,ed to their mission, with respect to 25 welfare to work, I would like if you couId, even 328 L in writing or here, speak about some of the 2 successes. Because I know that there have be en 3 some successes, as well as everybody taking shots 4 at you today about whatrs missing and whatr s 5 lacklng i 6 I think you owe it to Yourself and 7 to the Department to boast a litt1e more, so sort B of like what Representative Evans.was saying, 9 boast a 1itt1e more, be a 1ittle more aggressive 10 with regards to if you were not where you qre 11 what would not exist, as opposed to because you L2 are where you what does not exist. 13 I would rea1ly like for you to t4 expound on the successes across-the-board, t_5 t hrough all six of your departments, so that 16 peopl e can see what great a j ob you're doing. t7 SECRETARY RICHMAN: Let me just in 1B the interest of time talk about two on the topic . 19 of welfare to work that I think as a Department 20 we're very proud of. 2l The f irst is that werre emphasi z ing 22 education. And helping women who are making that 23 trans that transfer from welfare to work stay 24 in school, get a littIe bit more education. 25 Clearly information and data we have is for eve ry 329 1 year we can keep someone in school the 2 probability they come back on welfare ro11s goes 3 way, wdY, way down . And our goal is to where everyone is 4 : 5 not going to be able to go to a community 6 co11€9€, everyone isn't going to be able -- or 7 wants to go back to school. B But for many of those folks makj-ng 9 that transition who can go back to school, L0 particularly if it's in a community co11€9€, for 11 every year we keep them in coI1€9€, the l2 probability just goes down dramatically that they 1_3 ever come up, they come back t4 Many of the folks who early on went 15 to the very lowest paying jobs in a time when the ' L6 economy d.rops, theyr re al l back. And that s part t7 of what werre feeling right now. 18 So and another area that I think 19 werve worke!d successf uI in is in the whole area 20 of child care. 2I It has been wonderful, as I have 22 moved around the state, to see our Keystone Stars 23 fourth level programs. These are where. werve 24 been able to put in the dollars, we:.ve been able 25 to put in the education and training, and werve 330 . 1 been able to put in the supports to get our child 2 care programs from a first star, which is a to 3 get into the star program is an effort for them, 4 to move them through star four. BoEh the . 5 programs, their support sources in the counties, all have worked very hard to have a and the : 7 families' ""';;::"";,:' B "::":"::;r,;:.';"r.rieve 9 there are about 1200 of them in the state, not 10 that quite that many, Kdthy? 1200 all together? LL DEPUTY SECRETARY YORKIEVITZ: Yeah. t2 SECRETARY RICHMAN: For one thrdugh 13 I OUr 14 DEPUTY SECRETARY YORKI EVI TZ : 15 There t s 900 in Stars. 16 .SECRETARY RICHMAN: 900 in Stars, so T7 werre very pleased to be able to see Lhq number 1B of people working within our program. 19 We've also been able to clear our 20 waiting list twice in the past year.. The last 2t clearing'of the waiting list happened on December 22 31st. And everyone who had been on the waiting 23 list up through October was off. Obviously now 2'4 werre at that waiting list is building again. 25 And, d9ain, hte will take very seri.ously making 331 'sure ; t children and their famil ]-es movl-ng from 2 welfare to work begin to get into child care as 3 .quickly as possible. 4 5 provid.e saf e, healthy, good child care with 6 experienced teachers, it is very difficult for 7 women to go back Eo work or to men, fathers to go B back to work and feel their children are safe and 9 being well take of. L0 There are any number of programs ..i LL where I think the deputies and the staff have 1-2 worked very hard in terms of bringing programs 13 a1ong. And sure there are things that the 14 taxpayers of Pennsylvania f ee1 that their d^o11ars L5 are well spent. L6 REPRESENTATM MYERS : Thank you, 1,7 Mr, Chairman . Hers looking at rl€, hers going to L8 take it out on me. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 19 CHAIRMAN ARGALL: Yourre welcome. 20 Representative Sturla. 2L RE PRES ENTAT M STURLA : Thankat- - -- t- you , 22 Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Madam Secretary. And I ZJ want to thank you for the numerous times you have 24 met with me and orqanizations from Irancaster to 25 discuss numerous j-ssues. The list is pages 1ong, 332 l_ the things that werve talked about. And I 2 appreciate what yourve been able to do for us. 3 There are a number of that ,people 4 have talked about where are you going to find the 5 money, how are you going to change the things, 6 what are you going to do. And I've always taken 7 the approach that it's your job to te11 us how 6 you can best do this job; it's our job to figure g out how to pay for it. l_0 And I tm always somewhat taken aback 11 by some of my colleagues who say you havenrt done t2 enough, you ought to d.o more, but dont t look to r-3 me to fund it. t4 I take on that responsibilitY, and I 15 think we should. be the ones f unding it,. So I r 11 16 step up right now and say that some of the things t7 yourve talked about I think are well worth 1B funding and. we need to figure out, as a 19 1e$islature, how to make those dollars happen. 20 SECRETARY RI CHMAN: Thank You. 2L REPRESENTATIVE STURLA: That needs : 22 to be our responsibility. Having said that, 23 something that's near and dear to my heart.that. I 24 know you are working on, and it will require some 25 more dollars, and should, is Autism Task Force 333 1 and the kinds of things they would like to do and 2 that you would like to do with autism in the 3 State of Pennsylvania. 4 Can you elaborate some more on that 5 Because you have - - you have given hope to o thousands of families around this state just by 7 even acknowledging that you need to dea1 with B this issue. 9 SECRETARY RICHMAN: For the L0 families with children in autism, in this case 11 children that are 2l and under, we need to take I2 serious Look of the dollars we have in there, 13 rearrange t,hem and look at how werre going to L4 provide a service in a more effective wdY, and a l_5 service that isn't so screened that families 16 arenrt getUing what they need. T7 ' I already know we rre going E,o need L8 dollars to creaEe an ad.ult system f or ad.ult,s. l_9 There are no services for adul ts with autism. 20 We force fit t hem into the mental ; 2t health system or we force fir them into the 22 mental retardation system, but there is not a 23 ranse of'"'";;"". 24 are folks'who will probably 25 need some level of long-term care. They should 334 1- not be in institutions. They should live as 2 independently as possible, but they're going to 5 need some supports and probably many of them some 4 level of suDervision. 5 We need to provide them with things 6 to do during the day. Jobs many of them .can 7 ho1d, but.werre going to need.to almost start B from scratch. They will need to be 9 will be writing a waiver to support this so we 10 can get federal match, but there will need to be Ll_ state dollars that provide the base for that I2 match. 13 The report on the task force on l4 ad.ults hasnrt gott,en to me yet. I know it's in 15 draft form and it's being sort of vetted,now L5 before I get it. And Irm looking forward to it. L7 I do have the report on the Medicaid waiver and 18 we will be working on that together with all of 1', the relevant departments in DPW. 20 But we wi 11 need your part,nership, 2t too, as we move down this path. This is a group 22 of people who have been sort of ignored or swepc 23 under the carpet or misdiagnosed for many, many 24 years. And their parents, I believe, have reason 25 right now to have hope that we'11 bring it out 335 L into the open. And we need to face the challenge 2 of' how do we provide a leveI of service for the -? thous and.s o f Pennsylvani ans who are ad.ul t s wi th .t autism and who have never had a system around 5 them. 6 REPRESENTATIVE STURLA: Thank you. ,7 CHAIRMAN ARGALI, : Represenl,at,ive B Frankel. 9 REPRESENTATIVE FRANKEL: Thank you, l_0 Mr: Chairman. .I certainly don't want to be left L1 out of the Secretary Richman fan cIub. I feel a T2 lot of love wit,h this group today. Itrs been an L3 unusual exDerience. ts I4 . But it eerie to trl€, because some 15 of this isreminiscent of some of'the discussions 16 we had last year when we were looking at L7 restorat ions . 1B And I think I have to get back to 19 what my colleague Representative Sturla said. 20 We have to be honest about this. We 2t share clearly a biparLisan interesL in many of 22 these programs in helping people, I mean ,the COLA 23 situation, respite care, M€dicaid services. But 24 at the end of the day, we do have to come up with 25 'money to pay forE- it.!L 336 1 And yourve expressed z extraordinarily extraordinary ability to be 3 creative, flexib1e, marked contrast from what 4 Irve been used to in the past from your 5 preoeces sor. 6 Itrs therets never been, rlo we l 7 canrt do this for X, Y, Z. Itrs always been, w€ I can find a way. But clearly funding is going to 9 be part of the equation. 10 So I would ask, certainly my t_1 colleagues on both sides of the aisle, that'as t2 the revenue situation improves and it will, 13 it's a matter of time that "instead of rushing 14 towards cutting taxes left and right for 15 poliEical benefit, not that :that shouldn't be a 15 consideration, but in that caLculation we take a L7 Look at dealing with some of these priorities L8 that we.rve talked about here. l_9 And I say to the advocacy community 20 - thatrs here, donrt look at your j ust your 2t narrow . interest in one program. 'You need Lo ho1d. 22 us accountable to the things that werve said here 23 today that we support. And hold us accountable 24 to pay for them, because all too often in that 25 part of the equation is omitted. 337 L And you know, because Iive just o 2 Irve been here only five years, and I have seen, 3 quite frankly, squandered opportunities, 4 s.quandered opportunities when times were better. 5 I don't want that to happen again, because the 6 long-term health of the Commonwealth canrt be 7 sacrificed for short-term political gain, B particularly as we see the recovery hopefully in 9 the state revenue situation. 10 And along those 1j-nes excuse me l_ l_ because maybe Irm speechifying and that's my t2 privilpge at the end of the day because most of 13 my questions were covered. t4 But we af-so need to'ho1d Washington L5 accountable and think some of the things coming 15 down the pike need to be addressed on a t7 bipartisan basis as we11, and particularly f 1B would say to my republican colleagues who 19 expressed so much support for some of the work 20 you're doing, werre looking at some additional 2t p rob 1 ems 22 I know there's a bill in Congress 23 that would increase participation rates, work 24 participation rates under TANF, which sounds like 25 a great thing. But we and most other states 338 1 havenrt met the existing participation rates. o 2 And. what about all the associated programming 3 that needs to go with it, child care, 4 transportation, additional you know, w€ take 5 people off Medicaid ro11s, uninsured. 6 We need to be concerned about that 7 and be very, very focused on what's coming down B the pike that will impact us in the future, 9 particularly with our with the existing 10 ma j ority administration in Washingt,on. So I LL think we need to be proactive here and. also true T2 to the rhetoric that werve all been espousing L3 here in terms , of support for expansion of some L4 very important services and programs 15 So I didnrt want to make a speech, I 16 wanted to probably T7 everything so thoroughly I thought maybe I ' d. take 1B that opportunity, yourre we1'come to comment. 19 Thank you. 20 SECRETARY RICHMAN: Thank you. And .l 2t we Irm looking forward Lo working with all of 22 you ."_,r" begin to address what can be seen as a 23 very aggressive budget in terms of making it come 24 together and finding ways to address many of the 25 i-ssues that we haventt been able to ad.dress, 339 because the well-being of many Pennsylvanians lie 2 wi t,hin thi s Department . 3 I interact with many of you for your 4 constituents. And my commitment is to find a way 5 to solve problems. And hopefully working 6 together we can solve many of the issues that 7 were brought up today 8 CHAf RMAN ARGALTI-r: Die Tetzte f rage. 9 Sorry, Tony. I don't know how to say that in L0 Italian. The last question is Representative 1l_ Mel-io. t2 REPRESENTATIVE MELIO: Thank you, 13 Mr. Chairman. The b..reLary's wearing a 1ape1 I4 pin that says create a miracle. I say L5 Pennsylvania received a miracle when we got J_ t) Secretary Richman. L7 SECRETARY RICHMAN: Thank you. 1B *"PRBSENTATIVE MELIO: And I just . 19 have a reaL brief quest j-on. Can you te11 us 20 what growing needs for long-term care service 2L is among Pennsylvaniats aging and disabled 22 population, I heard about a demonstration called 23 Community Choice. Could you te11 me more about 24 this? 25 SECRETARY RICHMAN: Community Choice 340 L is probably one of the most exciting things that 2 werve d.one. Werve done it in collaboration with 3 the office of health care reform in the I Department of Aging 5 As many of us know, particularly 6 those of us who have white hair and arg getting 7 older, Lhat we often say we want to age in p1ace. I We donrt want to be in a nursing home. If we 9 become disabled, we would 1ike. to be able to 10 sti11 live in our community. 1_L What Community Choice has done is l2 give people the option of where they -- where 13 lhey live as they age or become disabled. We l_4 we have started with two pilots. One in FayeLLe, 15 Green and Washington Counties began October 3Lst, l_6 and the urban pilot in Philadelphia began on t7 January 3 1 st 1B The pilot is to when people need 19 are coming out of an acute care hospital where 20 they n.ormaIIy would go into a nursing home, to 2L give them an option to receive that, 22 level of home care supports in their own home. 23 Werve been able-L1^ the fascinating 24 piece for me and the reason I !m so proud of this 25 is we were able to move from concept to operation 341 L in about. four months. o 2 DPW can take four months to do a 3 memo. So t,o be able to actually do something + quickly was like, wow, if we can do this, we can 5 get some things done reaIly fast and can begin to 6 use this skill to move many other of our agendas 7 to go. I we mad.e, there are several keY 9 components to Community Choice. The first one is 10 that we shortened the application process L1 significantly by shortening the process. l2 We now al low separat.ion of income as 'to 13 opposed taking people through a long process 14 within the CEOrs. ' 15 The CEO's and the Department of 16 Aging through their AAA's work :very sely- to t7 get people'identified and get them into service L8 quacr 19 Werve been able to divert PeoPle 20 from nursing homes in numbers that have been 2L phenomenal from my persPective. 22 Werve been we I re keePl-ng very 23 close track of this. Werve moved' t'he service 24 25 people certified for service as opposed to taking 342 1 months sometimes. 2 Wetve been able to move the 3 qualification the dollars limit from $2, oO0 to .+ $8,000. 5 Services have to be in Place in 11 6 days or date determined by the individual rather 7 than taking months. Werve been able to move B crasr-s cases or immediate1 cases in even less 9 period of time and to establish authorizaLion for 10 Medicaid within 24 hours. 1L . I mean, there are several changes l2 that we have done t,o be able to make sure that 13 people who are in need of long-term care can now T4 go into the communitY 15 Incidentally, long-term care for L5 nursing homes is the largest cost item in the DPW L7 budget,. L8 For every Person that goes into a 19 nursing home, three people can Jive in the 20 communi ty. 2t As the baby boomers get older we 22 vlould have seen the slope on t'he nursing home 23 l-ine go straight up, and the dollars that would 24 be required would be overwhelming to our budget. .to 25 By beginning switch to. a home and 343 community care model, we will be able to sustain 2 .the.aging of the baby boomers by holding it 3 steady.. Not interested in putting nursing homes 4 out of business, not interested in hurting the 5 industry; interested. in not growing it to the 6 point that, one, people dontt have choice, and 7 secondly, w€ canrt afford to prowide good quality B care. 9 So werre moving to a home and 10 community-based model. We can serve more people. Ll_ We g.r get people choice. We. are putting in t2 place the programs that will assure the quality, r-3 we get very concerned that we can monitor quality L4 and make sure folks are going to live safely in 15 the community L5 At the same time we need to make t7 sure those folks who require, need., or choose 1B nursing,homes also have safe and adequate qua.lity 19 care there. 20 It is a total systems change for ,!_ DPW. Werve been able to move it quickfy. We see 22 this.as budget neutral and hope to move to a 23 statewide initiative the beginning of the fiscal 24 year ,Ju1y Lst. Thank you. 25 REPRESENTATIVE MELIO: Thank you, 344 1 Richman. And that Last stat,ement .secretary that 2 our chairman mad.e qualifies him for membership in 3 the Italian caucus. + CHAIRMAN ARGAI-rL: I think they at 5 ' least touch on the southern bord.er, yeah. That 6 was :- Representative DiGirolamo, God bless him, 7 had to go back to Bucks County and has given me a B series of questions for you to answer, if you 9 ffidy, in writing to him. 10 SECRETARY RICHMAN: Thank you. 11 CHAI RMAN ARGALI-r: We .wi 11 reconvene T2 Uomorrow at 10 a.m. to hear f rom the Historical- 1.3 and Museum Commission, the Governorrs office, the t4 Department of Community Economic'Development, and 15 the Insurance Department. We stand. adjourned. t6 (Hearing adjourned at 4:59 p.m.) 1,7 1_8 19 20 2L 22 23 24 I' 25 345 1 I hereby certify l" 2 proceedings and evidence are 3 accurately in the notes taken 4 proceedings and that this is 5 of the same 6 7 tJ 9 Heather 10 Notary Public 1l- t2 $IOTARIALSEAL HEAftm LAHIA NctaryPubl*; l-orrerAllen Twp., Cun6erland County 13 CornmlsslonEplres Feb. 22.2008 1,4 15 L6 t7 1B 19 20 2t 22 23 24 25