PublicSource (https://www.publicsource.org/category/money-and-politics/)
We tend to think voters choose politicians. But what if politicians actually pick their voters?
That’s exactly what has been happening in America, thanks to gerrymandering, according to journalist David Daley, author of “Ratf**cked: The True Story Behind the Secret Plan to Steal America's Democracy.”
It was the first direct action related to Pittsburgh’s bid to Amazon, and organizers said it was the beginning of a broader campaign to push local leaders to make the city’s process of economic development more equitable and transparent.
At times, government may seem like a black hole with little transparency on how your tax dollars are being spent. That’s why shedding light on how the state of Pennsylvania spends your money is a top priority of ours. As we have been since 2014, PublicSource requested and is publishing data on the salaries that state government employees earned in 2017. All told, those figures account for several billion dollars of taxpayer money. Our data includes the agency an employee works for, when they were hired, their annual salary and the overtime they earned.
While you may be spending a third of your budget on housing or paying off debt, Allegheny County spends about a third of its budget on employee salaries. In 2017, 35 percent of the county’s operating budget went to paychecks. That line item, however, did not include health insurance or other benefits workers receive. PublicSource publishes data on the employee salaries from Allegheny County, the City of Pittsburgh and the state of Pennsylvania each year because we think residents should see how their tax dollars are spent. We've been reporting on salaries since 2014.
This year, we’re breaking down the data with a twist: This quiz is a fun way to learn how your tax dollars are spent.
Why should you care? Prior to this bill, there was no statewide mandate that schools had to test for lead in their water.
Pittsburgh Police Chief Scott Schubert made the rounds to city council members last week to ease concerns over a proposed half-million dollar allocation to B-Three Solutions, a software contractor one of his officers raised concerns about in a recent whistleblower lawsuit.
Using the state’s Right-to-Know Law, designed to enable citizens to access public records, PublicSource filed requests for emails by providing names of city employees, keywords and a time period to enable the city to locate the public records. The city has repeatedly denied the requests, arguing that they’re too vague.
Republican Rick Saccone has promised to fight for President Donald Trump and his agenda. Democrat Conor Lamb said he is running against Saccone, not Trump, and many in the political world think his victory could foreshadow big Democratic gains in the November midterm elections.
Update 2/14/2018: In a determination issued today, the state’s Office of Open Records [OOR] ruled that the City of Pittsburgh is required to release documents relating to its bid for Amazon’s second headquarters. OOR ruled that the city must release a copy of the proposal, documents relating to financial incentives and potential sites and internal communications about the bid. OOR similarly ordered Allegheny County and Gov. Tom Wolf’s office to release the Amazon proposal. You can read the full ruling below. Pennsylvania’s Office of Open Records [OOR] ruled Wednesday that both Allegheny County and Gov. Tom Wolf’s office must release documents related to Pittsburgh’s and Philadelphia’s bids for Amazon’s second headquarters.
