I've got a nasty cold, so don't read this with an eye for cohesion. In fact, I openly admit today's post is purely stream of consciousness because I'm writing it under the influence of an over-the-counter drug cocktail. Deal with it or I'll cough on you.

You can tell I'm on drugs because the first thing I'm going to do is praise - you heard me right - praise the folks running the State Employees' Retirement System. Somehow, they managed to reap a 17.2 percent rate of return last year, earning a whopping $5.2 billion.

Guess those investments in booze, oil, gambling and defense contractor stocks are paying off. Just kidding, the only thing squirrely on a list of the system's investments was just the name "Fidelity Real Estate Opportunistic Income Fund."

But if being oppportunistic pays, more power to 'em. How many of us in the private sector wish we could have done so well with our 401(k)s?

By having such a great year, the system now projects the taxpayers' share toward state employee retiree benefits will cost less than 8 percent of the state's payroll in 2012 - instead of the 28 percent forecasted just five years ago.

If you that forecast was fubared, just ask Philly Mayor Michael Nutter what he's facing thanks to the city's underfunded retirement plan.

Hell, I hope PHEAA hires a few of those SERS folks away. The huge egos over at the student-loan agency, which is suspending its federal loans, could not forsee the subprime mortgage crisis rocking the bond market too and now college students are paying the price. Duh!

BOOZE ON WHEELS, PLANE FOR SALE

This one must be brought to you by the same geniuses who thought it was cool to allow motorcyclists to drive without helmets and don't see a correlation with the resulting increase in brain damage and fatalities.

Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board spokesman Nick Hays says the idea of mobile liquor stores is just one of several possibilities the agency is weighing to make wine and hard liquor more available in rural parts of the state, I kid you not.

Believe it or not, that was the best Hays could spin the idea Board chairman P.J. Stapleton mentioned during a Senate hearing on the PLCB's budget, Hays also noted it's not a priority for the agency.

What a state! We can't afford bookmobiles, additional funds for meals on wheels, and are reduced to art on a cart in some school districts, but we can afford to drive around the countryside delivering booze to doorsteps like the milkmen of old?

Money is so tight now, that Gov. Ed Rendell is selling half of his air force - if you can call a two-jet fleet that.

To save money, Fast Eddie want to sell the older and smaller of the two jets, a 1982 Beech King Air 200, for $1.3 million.

SLOTS TO EXPLAIN

In a pair of hearings held in the state Capitol Wednesday, House Republicans criticized what they called weaknesses in the current slots law, while the Senate Appropriations Committee called on the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board to defend its performance.

Some lawmakers who opposed the state's 2004 legalization of slot machines cited the perjury charges against Mount Airy Casino Resort owner Louis DeNaples as evidence.

"We all look funny with this," Sen. James J. Rhoades, R-Schuylkill, told gaming board members and staff. "Dealing with gaming, we have to be beyond any reproach."

Sen. Pat Browne, R-Lehigh, called it a "black mark" as he and other senators asked gaming board officials what changes should be made.

The board's own investigators believed DeNaples lied about his relationship with reputed mob boss Billy D'Elia, but couldn't prove it. They alerted the state police, who began investigating DeNaples, but did not tell the board. Nor did the board subpoena D'Elia before issuing a license to DeNaples on Dec. 21, 2006.

Labels: Louis DeNaples, Pennsylvania, PHEAA, PLCB, SERS, slots

The Post-Gazette series on the state liquor store system continued today with some vinegar-tasting news, the bouquet of stinky politics and and the bitter aftertaste of tax avoidance.

Among today's disclosures:

• A North Philly state store that was subject to community protests in 2004 is in a strip mall owned by a development company headed by Jay Vederman, son of a top aide to Gov. Ed Rendell when Fast Eddie was the city's mayor. The 10-year lease will eventually will pay out more than $100,000 annually. The more profitable store it replaced was leased for about $30,000 a year.
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• Another store with dwindling profits is in Doylestown, Bucks County, home of Joe Conti, the new liquor board CEO. In the past three years, the store's profits have decreased from $48,708 to $16,255. Yet, the board renewed its lease last fall for another year even though a highly profitable Premium Collection store (seventh-most profitable in the state) is less than a mile away.
  
  Conti and Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board Chairman Patrick J. Stapleton said the downtown state store is a convenience for diners to purchase wine before they eat bring-your-own-bottle restaurants, but its performance is one reason they limited the lease renewal to one year.
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• Stapleton is a busy man. He is currently paid $68,770 as chairman. He also reported in his 2007 statement of financial interests more than $1 million in salary in 2006 from two law firms - $945,000 as a partner at Weber, Gallagher, Simpson, Stapleton, Fires & Newby in Philadelphia, $105,000 from his law practice in Indiana, Pa. and $2,500 as a director for Enterprise Bank. The year before, he reported a total of $262,000 from the three positions.
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• Despite the monopoly on wine and liquor sales, nearly 10 percent of the state's 623 stores last fiscal year showed a loss. The biggest loser was at Liberty Avenue between Ninth and 10th avenues in Downtown Pittsburgh, where expenses exceeded sales by more than $85,000.
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• An estimated 200 to 300 Pittsburgh restauranteurs and bar owners have found a way out of paying a 1 percent Allegheny County tax on all wine and spirit sales by going to store 6316. Located in the back parking lot of an all-but-abandoned shopping mall in Washington County, the store is one of a few across the state which sells discounted liquor in bulk.

Labels: Citizens Voice, Ed Rendell, Joe Conti, liquor, Patrick J. Stapleton, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, PLCB, Post-Gazette, wine

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette began a laudable series today whose aim is nothing less than ending the state's monopoly on booze sales by privatizing its stores.

Among the newspaper's disclosures so far:

• The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board generated nearly half a billion dollars profit last year for state coffers on $1.69 billion in sales. Much of the revenue, however, went to pay the more than 3,600 full- or part-time state store clerks and managers, plus more than 400 people at its Harrisburg headquarters.
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• The average annual salary of a Pennsylvania state store clerk is $30,000, plus health benefits and a pension. A phone survey of privately owned liquor stores in neighboring Ohio suggests that clerks there typically earn half what Pennsylvania clerks make, with no benefits.
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• It's grossly, maybe even purposely, inefficient. In the state-store distribution system, all wine and spirits must go through one of three warehouses, in Pittsburgh, Scranton and Philadelphia. Although a state store is just a few miles from some Erie County wineries, the winery has to truck its wares all the way to Pittsburgh when the local store needs to be restocked.
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• Despite a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision that was supposed to put in-state and out-of-state wineries on equal footing for shipping wines directly to customers, Pennsylvania is still listed as a "no-ship" state on the California Wine Institute's Web page.
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• A $10 bottle of wine costs about $18 after markups, charges and state taxes get tacked on.

Labels: Ed Rendell, liquor, PLCB, wine