Senate amendment takes site from Treasurer
By Jim Panyard | PA Independent
HARRISBURG — A website showing Pennsylvania residents how their money is being spent may not be completed until 2014.
The Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday voted for an amendment to HB 15 that would make the Governor’s Office of Administration, or OA, responsible for creating and maintaining PennWATCH, a website that would enable state residents to follow state tax collections and payments, including most government employee salaries.
“We have most of the data PennWATCH would want. It just makes sense to house it here,” said Dan Egan, OA spokesman.
The amendments, introduced by state Sen. Pat Browne, R-Lehigh, would extend the completion date of the website to Dec. 31, 2014, much later than the end of the year deadline set in the House-passed version, sponsored by state Rep. Jim Christiana, R-Beaver. The original bill also made the State Treasurer’s Office responsible for establishing the website.
Egan said the three-year timeline for the project is due to the amount of data that would have to be collected from outside agencies, such as the state judiciary, and the transfer of that data to make it compatible with the PennWATCH format.
PennWATCH would allow residents to track state revenue collections and expenditures. However, the website would not include certain confidential material, such as pension information about state employees and teachers.
Neither Christiana nor Browne returned calls seeking comment on the amendments.
