{"id":28652,"date":"2016-04-04T09:05:50","date_gmt":"2016-04-04T13:05:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=28652"},"modified":"2016-04-04T09:05:50","modified_gmt":"2016-04-04T13:05:50","slug":"letter-holding-harrisburg-accountable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=28652","title":{"rendered":"Letter: Holding Harrisburg accountable"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><strong>To The Editor,<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Letters1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-1325889\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Letters1.jpg\" alt=\"Letters1\" \/><\/a>I am often asked what I mean when I say Harrisburg must be held accountable. Where to start is a better question. There are a lot of areas where this applies but let\u2019s start with one of the easiest to identify.\u00a0 I want to end the practice of paying per diems to our legislators for the days that they are in Harrisburg.\u00a0 (<i>Per diems are a daily food and lodging expense allowance that is made available to lawmakers who must travel more than 50 miles to Harrisburg or an <\/i><\/span><span class=\"s2\"><i>event<\/i><\/span><span class=\"s1\"><i>.<\/i>)\u00a0<\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"> According\u00a0to the National Conference of State Legislatures PA Representatives were provided a per diem of $159 per day in 2015.\u00a0 Receipts are not required to receive this payment, so spending less than the per diem rate means they can pocket the difference.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Legislators should be reimbursed for their legitimate expenses that are properly filed. That is what is done in business and that is what should be done in Harrisburg. Instead, some legislators use per diems as a way to\u00a0boost\u00a0their salaries at taxpayer expense. \u00a0I do not believe that is serving the people of Pennsylvania ethically or with integrity.\u00a0 I want to hold Harrisburg accountable and so, if I am elected, I will join with other legislators who are working to move legislation that requires legislators to submit receipts and be reimbursed for those expenses.\u00a0 I will also post my monthly\u00a0expenses on my legislative website for the public to see, holding me accountable as well.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"s1\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"text-align: right;\"><strong><span class=\"s1\">Susan Rzucidlo<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"text-align: right;\"><strong><span class=\"s1\">Candidate PA House<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"text-align: right;\"><strong><span class=\"s1\">158<\/span><span class=\"s4\"><sup>th<\/sup><\/span><span class=\"s1\"> District<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\" style=\"text-align: right;\"><strong>New Garden<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To The Editor, I am often asked what I mean when I say Harrisburg must be held accountable. Where to start is a better question. There are a lot of areas where this applies but let\u2019s start with one of the easiest to identify.\u00a0 I want to end the practice of paying per diems to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28651,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6909,8226,8225],"class_list":["post-28652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","tag-election-2016","tag-per-diems","tag-susan-rxucidlo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}