Cuts are needed

At a time when most readers want the state budget held in check and spending brought under control, you had opposite comments from a state bureaucrat ("Open Records at Risk," July 21). Nothing wrong with that, but why elevate her to a guest columnist? She decries the cut in her office, the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records, which is brand new but already has nine employees.

The PG could probably get the exact figures, but I would estimate the cost of this office is already over $1 million when you take into consideration salaries, benefits (health care, annual leave, sick leave and personal days), office space, office equipment, supplies and automobiles.

She is unhappy that the cuts stifle her empire building. Sorry, but all offices, bureaus, departments, commissions and other agencies do it. We are in desperate economic times and the state can't continue as it did in the past. Somehow the commonwealth survived without an open records office in the 400 years since William Penn started it all. That office can now limp along for a few more years.

DR. JAY R. WELLS, III
Bethel Park