Budget Delay, Forfeit Pay

One Pennsylvania state lawmaker has a suggestion on how to get the budget process moving. State Representative Ron Marsico of Dauphin County says there needs to be an incentive to speed up the process of crafting a new spending plan. Marsico says the governor, several executive-level staffers and lawmakers should be the ones to feel the impact when July 1 rolls around and there is no spending plan in place "The governor has had a tendency to hold up the budget and has held state employees hostage. Maybe if the governor and some of those folks do not get paid during a budget impasse, they will have a personal incentive to get it done in a timely fashion."
Governor Rendell introduced his budget plan the first week of February. His spokesman Chuck Ardo says Marsico's legislation targets administration staffers who have little impact on budget passage...yet does not impact legislative staff.