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COVID-19

Voters may decide fate of disaster powers

HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania voters will likely soon get the final say about whether to limit the governor’s powers during a disaster emergency after a divided state House of Representatives endorsed a proposed constitutional amendment Wednesday. House members voted 116 to 85 in the latest legislative approval vote. One more vote in either the House or Senate is needed before the constitutional amendment can be considered in a statewide referendum, as early as the May 18 primary election. The amendment would cap disaster declarations at 21 days unless lawmakers extend them. It would ...

Pandemic changes how state budget will be handled

HARRISBURG — The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is changing the way the state budget is being handled, just like it did last year. The ceremony surrounding the governor’s budget address — one of the high points of the civic year at the state Capitol — will be absent this year. The Senate budget hearings are being postponed to sometime in the spring while the House budget hearings are on track for a normal timetable. Gov. Tom Wolf plans to deliver his sixth budget address to the General Assembly using a pre-recorded video in order to avoid a situation where people in close ...

Labor Dept. addresses unemployment backlog

The state House Labor & Industry Committee on Wednesday learned of changes that could help the department it oversees better serve constituents who have been deluging lawmakers with complaints about benefit holdups that have occurred due to the overwhelming demand for unemployment compensation since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The changes include elimination of waiting weeks and credit weeks, loosening of a restriction in the “portal” by which lawmakers’ offices relay complaints to the department, the addition of department staff, better communications and ...

State vaccine efforts falling short

Pennsylvania is “in the middle of the pack” in vaccination performance with its decentralized approach — and not only needs to improve, but is willing to “steal” successful practices from other states if that will help, Gov. Tom Wolf said during a virtual news conference Tuesday. But the main holdup for Pennsylvania and other states is a lack of doses from the federal government, according to Wolf and officials at the meeting. “(When we) get more vaccines, I think we will do better,” Wolf said. “We want to be at the top.” Pennsylvania is actually below the middle in ...

AASD moving to hybrid model

The Altoona Area School Board voted 7-2 on Tuesday to transition all students to a hybrid model, with elementary students beginning Feb. 8 and secondary students on the 16th. The hybrid model will break students into groups A and B, with A meeting in-person Monday, Wednesday and every other Friday, and B meeting Tuesday, Thursday and every other Friday. Special education students will return full time and in-person Feb. 8, and all teachers will report on-site the same day. All students will return full time and in-person after two weeks of the county positivity rate staying in the ...

L&I working through payment glitches

The state Department of Labor & Industry is working through glitches as it begins paying benefits for two unemployment programs to benefit those out of work because of COVID-19, following Congress’s reauthorization of the programs after they expired just before the end of last year. “I understand how frustrating it is,” said acting Labor Secretary Jennifer Berrier. “Not everything has gone as smoothly as we wanted.” The Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program and the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program ended Dec. 26, and the federal government didn’t ...