We are not anywhere close to that at present

After session this morning, I stayed and finished some work and did a radio show from my desk at the capitol then headed to the Hollidaysburg office. We are not going to session tomorrow and are scheduled for a full week again starting Monday. There has been some discussion publicly and privately about how much time the entire legislature needs to be in Harrisburg during the budget negotiations after June 30th. I would think that the public perception is that all members of the House and Senate are sitting at their desk with a calculator crunching numbers and the Governor is sitting across the desk arguing about each dollar added or subtracted. In reality, the leadership of each of the four caucuses meets with the Governor and brings back information to their respective caucus. At that point, the rank and file members have input. The leaders then go back and negotiate from there. A member of the House spoke out this week about the entire legislature staying in Harrisburg during this period and explained that it costs $50,000 each day for just the House to be in session. I am not sure of his number, but think that it is at least close. There needs to be time for committees to meet and for bills to go through the process, but an abbreviated schedule might be a way to save some money. There is always plenty of work to do in the district and at this time and with this issue, the people might be better served if we were in the district working and meeting with them than in Harrisburg waiting for information from a meeting. Obviously, when things start to come together in a budget deal, the legislature needs to be in place so the process can work. But, we are not anywhere close to that at present.