During height of coronavirus pandemic, Pa. lawmakers still cashed in big on meals, lodging

This story originally appeared on Spotlight PA.

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Within weeks of the first coronavirus cases last spring, as large swaths of Pennsylvania’s economy shut down, the state legislature followed suit, allowing most of its members to vote remotely.

Lawmakers said they were confident they could carry on the business of the people without gathering inside the General Assembly’s ornate chambers — where desks are spaced fewer than six feet apart — and, in some cases, without being in Harrisburg at all.

But that didn’t stop many of them from cashing in on expenses.

A Spotlight PA analysis of legislative records found lawmakers requested and received $726,877 from the beginning of March — as the pandemic emerged — through the end of 2020 as reimbursement for lodging and meals while traveling to and from the Capitol or other meetings across the state.

The analysis found two House Democratic lawmakers each padded their salaries by more than $24,000 in additional taxpayer money during that time through the special perk.

The payments, known as “per diems,” have long been criticized as an unnecessary largesse for the country’s largest full-time legislature, which pays the third-highest salaries for state lawmakers in the country.

But against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic, which has caused historic hardship for so many across the state, the payments are receiving fresh attention.

Per diems are daily flat rates lawmakers can claim when they travel more than 50 miles from their house for legislative business. Unlike in the private sector, legislators don’t have to provide receipts, leaving open the possibility that their actual daily expenses could be more or less than the full per diem rate, which in 2020 generally ranged from $178 to $200.

Pennsylvania has some of the most generous per diem rates among all state legislatures, according to an analysis by the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Lawmakers are not required to accept per diems and always have the option to forego them and instead submit receipts for expenses.

“All of us have been asked to make sacrifices during this pandemic, and the General Assembly should be no different,” Sen. Tim Kearney (D., Delaware) said last summer, as he and three Democratic colleagues introduced legislation to suspend per diems during the pandemic.

“It seems like the least we can do,” he added in a recent interview.

The bill was assigned to a committee last September but never got an airing. A bipartisan group of senators has signaled they will try, once again, to pitch a bill this session to require receipts for reimbursement. But politically, doing away with per diems will likely be a heavy lift because any change would be up to those who benefit most — the lawmakers themselves.

According to Senate officials, legislators in the chamber received a total of $90,425 last year in per diems. Of that, just under $58,000 was shelled out to 17 of 50 senators after the first presumed positive cases were identified in early March.

House Democrats cash in

In mid-March of last year, the House passed temporary rules to allow members to vote remotely (the Senate already had rules in place to allow remote voting). Party leaders and committee chairs still had to physically be present in the Capitol to formally consider legislation, but rank-and-file members could submit votes from afar to their leaders, though they could not participate in debates.

The normally packed voting floor in both chambers cleared out significantly. Still, on any given session day, there were more Republicans in the chambers than Democrats. As time went on, Democrats complained bitterly that a handful of GOP lawmakers would show up in person but flout mask-wearing rules, creating an unsafe work environment.

Even so, in the House, Democratic lawmakers ended up charging more in per diems than their GOP colleagues: $401,068 from March 1 through Dec. 31, to Republicans’ $267,925, according to records.

The top per diem earner on the GOP side, former state Rep. Tom Murt of Montgomery County, received nearly $10,000 less than Sainato, collecting $14,732. Murt was sixth for per diems overall in the House, with the Democrats snagging the top five slots.

Rep. Kevin Boyle, a Democrat from Philadelphia, had the third-highest reimbursement total in the House, collecting $21,604 during that time frame.

In an interview, he said 2020 was an unusually hectic year for the House State Government Committee, on which he serves as minority chair. The panel was the hub last year for COVID-19 and election-related legislation, making it one of the busiest in the legislature. It met at least 17 times after the pandemic began, legislative records show.

Not only was it one of the busiest committees in the state legislature, Boyle said, but “one of the busiest in America” given the scope of its work in a historic election year during a pandemic. And as the ranking Democrat on the committee, he was required by House rules to attend committee meetings in person.

The committee’s Republican chairman in 2020, former state Rep. Garth Everett of Lycoming County, collected just $2,138 after the pandemic began. In an interview, he seconded Boyle’s description of how busy the committee was last year. But he said he tried to commute most days, given that his district is a manageable 90-minute drive, and took partial per diems mostly for meals.

“I was never one who liked to hang out in Harrisburg, just to hang out in Harrisburg,” Everett said.

Lawmakers have the option to opt-out of collecting per diems and instead get reimbursed by submitting receipts for the actual cost of lodging and meals while in Harrisburg or other parts of the state on legislative business.

In the House, 61 members went that route in 2020, according to chamber officials, who noted that it is possible some of those lawmakers also collected partial per diems (for instance, just for lodging or just for meals).

Still, the difference in price tag is stark: The House last year paid out $115,747 to lawmakers who submitted receipts for lodging and meals — nearly $840,000 less than what it shelled out for per diems.

Spotlight PA reporter Cynthia Fernandez and Sam Janesch of The Caucus contributed to this article.

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