4 ms·

As a PA resident, I've been hearing one of many reasons for the poor infrastructure is that a fairly big chunk of the road and bridge maintenance budget is bein

As a PA resident, I've been hearing one of many reasons for the poor infrastructure is that a fairly big chunk of the road and bridge maintenance budget is being redirected to the State Police: https://www.lehighvalleylive.com/lehigh-county/2019/04/42-billion-diverted-from-penndot-road-and-bridge-repairs-to-fund-state-police-new-audit-reveals.html https://www.lehighvalleylive.com/lehigh-county/2019/04/42-bi... What happens in town after town is that the anti-tax folks decide that there's no need to fund a local police department when the PA State Police is obligated to take over policing. There's currently no mechanism for the state to charge these towns for this service and their state reps fight any effort to put one in place. So year after year the State Police's budget grows out of control and infrastructure funds are an easy way to cover the costs.

giantg2 5y ago
True, they need to figure out state police funding. I wonder how much they pay out in law suits. I don't like the per capita fee structure proposed. PSP routinely operate in municipalities that already have police forces. If they want to make it more "fair", they should charge municipalities based on the number and/or type of call, regardless of whether they have a police force. There seem to be many of these funding oddities in the state. For example, dept ag complains that they can't fund dog wardens, so they want to increase license costs. Yet the law caps the amount of funding they can get from enforcement (I think the rest goes to the general fund). It would make sense to uncap the amount they get from enforcement. They would likely still need to increase license cost. But maybe they would actually do their job. We had a problem with a dog and found out it wasn't even licensed ($300 fine; the other party was the one who wanted to get the law involved, yet they didn't have a license). When I reported it to the dog warden, they laughed and didn't care. That's your job and you laugh. WTF do you actually do?

giantg2 5y ago

True, they need to figure out state police funding. I wonder how much they pay out in law suits. I don't like the per capita fee structure proposed. PSP routinely operate in municipalities that already have police forces. If they want to make it more "fair", they should charge municipalities based on the number and/or type of call, regardless of whether they have a police force. There seem to be many of these funding oddities in the state. For example, dept ag complains that they can't fund dog wardens, so they want to increase license costs. Yet the law caps the amount of funding they can get from enforcement (I think the rest goes to the general fund). It would make sense to uncap the amount they get from enforcement. They would likely still need to increase license cost. But maybe they would actually do their job. We had a problem with a dog and found out it wasn't even licensed ($300 fine; the other party was the one who wanted to get the law involved, yet they didn't have a license). When I reported it to the dog warden, they laughed and didn't care. That's your job and you laugh. WTF do you actually do?