Aug 18, 2016 3 min read

Editorial voices from newspapers around Pennsylvania:

The $250 million in overtime costs Pennsylvania paid out to state workers last year is an eye-opening number.

But until there’s a full analysis of how that figure stacks up against the cost of full-time worker hirings that would have eliminated the need for much or all of that overtime, state residents should delay condemning that seemingly excessive outlay.

An Associated Press article reported that the $250 million 2015 overtime cost represented an increase of nearly 10 percent over 2014. The article said an analysis of state payroll records by the Sunday Times of Scranton revealed a five-year trend of increased use of overtime. According to the Scranton newspaper’s data compilation, the increasing use of overtime has been fueled by hiring freezes and unfilled job vacancies.

But there were other causes, too, such as overtime necessitated by implementation of new child-protection laws passed as a result of the Jerry Sandusky and Roman Catholic clergy child sexual-abuse scandals.

If the state is due any criticism at this point regarding overtime spending, it’s that leaders only now seem to be getting serious about weighing the two options – overtime and additional hiring – against one another to determine which one is most cost-effective.

That task should be a routine exercise.

Go to any major sporting or entertainment event and one of the first people you will encounter is an entrepreneur seeking to mine profit from the secondary market for tickets – a scalper asking if you have extra tickets or want to buy one.

At that level the practice mostly is harmless or even beneficial to consumers – providing them with a ticket they otherwise might not be able to get, at a price they are willing to pay.

Technology, however, changes the equation. Due to the ability of scalpers to use the internet to buy huge numbers of tickets as they are issued, the secondary market for many events has eclipsed the primary market.

New York lawmakers are considering ways to deter the practice, but reform should be universal. Congress should outlaw ticket “bots,” require secondary sellers to report sales just as primary sellers do, and establish penalties for, in effect, stealing many Americans’ fair-market access to sports and entertainment.

Pennsylvania’s antiquated yet still profitable – for now – liquor system took another baby step recently with the opening of an the application process to eventually put wine into some commonwealth grocery and convenience stores.

The state’s liquor reform law, passed earlier this summer, went into effect earlier this month. While no timetable is in place for when consumers will actually be able to purchase their favorite vino along with their fancy cheeses, it is undoubtedly another shift away from the long-standing, stringent and archaic policies Pennsylvania has implemented for years.

It has been defendable to keep the status quo for a system that put tens of millions of dollars into state funds annually and continues to do so. Why would the state get out of a business that does more than $2 billion in sales? But declining profits will eventually cut into monies from booze spread throughout state coffers.

This reasoning does not even mention the legitimate argument that the state shouldn’t be in the liquor business to begin with.