The Lottery Deal

Gov. Corbett hired a British firm to manage the state lottery. The firm is guaranteeing it will bring in almost $2 billion more over its 20-year contract.

The union that represents lottery workers - AFSME - is suing to stop the deal because it will cost about 100 union job, though some 70 of those workers will be offered jobs with the private firm.

Democrats are loathe to support any plan to privatize anything. And some are claiming privatizing the lottery is illegal.

Pete Tartline, Executive Deputy Secretary of the state Office of the Budget disagrees:

Said Tartline:

Anytime the Commonwealth will privatize, contract out, or outsource an operation, it's defined in Article 43 of the master collective bargaining agreement that there’s a required "meet and discuss" period, there’s a requirement that contract terms and other information is shared with the union, and then they have a certain number of days to provide a counteroffer to the Commonwealth.

In most cases, an outsourcing is intended to create efficiencies or save money, so the unions have an opportunity to come up with other ways to achieve those goals that might not result in the furloughing of public employees. In this case the dynamics are a little bit different as the focus is "improved delivery of service," but they still have the opportunity to make a counteroffer.

The union's counteroffer is this: nothing. Not even the fee for the gaming license, which it would appreciate if you would put up personally.