In an effort to return the media and public focus on state government back to where it should be -- on important policy initiatives such as health-care reform, property-tax reductions, education and the development of alternative-energy sources, I offer the following background and explanation regarding House Democratic Caucus employee incentive compensation that was awarded under my watch.

House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese, D-Waynesburg, represents the 50th legislative district, which comprises all of Greene County and portions of Fayette and Washington counties (www.pahouse.com/deweese/).

The state budget provides each political party caucus leader with an annual allocation for staff compensation. Further, the 3rd Circuit Federal Court of Appeals has ruled that the Legislature has given caucus leaders the responsibility and discretion to spend the money needed to operate each respective caucus. The House Democratic Caucus pay scale is the lowest of all four legislative caucuses. In accordance with state law and House rules, the checks for last year were paid out of the annual appropriation allotted for House employee salaries, benefits, unemployment compensation and pensions.

Compensation in any organization is a very personal, emotional and divisive subject that lends itself to a plethora of subjective judgments. In the public sector, this is compounded by the additional challenge that our compensation is a matter of public record.

When initially questioned about the staff payments by the media, I believed that the information already was a matter of public record, just like all staff salaries have been for years. However, my understanding of this matter was wrong. This was in no way an attempt to keep anything from the public; rather I misunderstood what information already was available to the public.

It is my hope that the bipartisan Speaker's Commission on Legislative Reform will consider this issue in the coming weeks as they undertake a serious review of House rules. The full House of Representatives is expected to debate and vote on the group's recommendations during the week of March 12, and I fully expect that increased public access to House records will be part of that debate.

As the House Democratic leader, several years ago I instructed my staff to undertake a top-to-bottom study of the pay scales of all four legislative caucuses and the executive branch. As I said earlier, the House Democratic Caucus was, and continues to be, at the bottom of that list. Compensation incentives are one way to promote higher levels of productivity. I'm told that even the U.S. Department of Justice uses such payments to reward exceptional performance in U.S. attorneys' offices.

Compensation incentives to staff are but one tool organizations use to reward employees. We are no different. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, many other states make use of incentive payments because they can save on long-term payroll costs: They do not elevate base pay and, therefore, are not carried forward in perpetuity through pension increases. Most compensation analysts recommend incentive payments as a tool to drive increased productivity.

To recognize employees' efforts each year, the House Democratic Personnel and Procedures Manual allows special meritorious incentive payments to be awarded. These payments may be awarded upon the recommendation of mid- and higher-level managers to those employees whose salaries are capped, yet who still provide valuable service to the caucus, and for those who have done exceptional work.

Many individuals have received payments because they developed new tools to help our caucus members perform their jobs better for their constituents, spent late nights working when the House was in session, worked on holidays and weekends, and helped us to implement important policy initiatives including, but not limited to, such things as increasing the minimum wage, making historic investments in education and continuing our fight to provide health-care coverage for every child in Pennsylvania.

Also, near the end of each year, we have provided scaled "years-of-service payments" to every House Democratic Caucus employee who has been employed at least one year to recognize their faithful service to the caucus. I don't expect everyone to agree that compensation incentives are a useful management tool. Nevertheless, all of these payments have had a positive effect on morale and teamwork, and, I believe, have enhanced overall employee productivity.