{"id":143605,"date":"2025-07-08T20:56:03","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T00:56:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=143605"},"modified":"2025-07-08T20:56:03","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T00:56:03","slug":"coleman-seeks-answers-about-state-charter-flights-and-cost-discrepancies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=143605","title":{"rendered":"Coleman Seeks Answers About State Charter Flights and Cost Discrepancies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>HARRISBURG \u2013\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/senatorcoleman.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sen. Jarrett Coleman (R-16)<\/a>\u00a0exposed serious financial and operational concerns about the commonwealth\u2019s executive aircraft operations at a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/intergovernmental.pasenategop.com\/inter-062325\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">public hearing<\/a>\u00a0of the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/intergovernmental.pasenategop.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee<\/a>\u00a0in June.<\/p>\n<p>Continuing an investigation that began during Senate budget hearings earlier this year with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) and State Police (PSP), Coleman convened the hearing after receiving incomplete and vague responses to multiple written inquiries over the last several months.<\/p>\n<p>Both PennDOT and PSP provide flights for the governor, lieutenant governor, cabinet secretaries and other top officials and employees.<\/p>\n<p>Key revelations from the hearing include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>$26,000 of PSP\u2019s budget was used to pay a charter aircraft service invoice.<\/strong>\u00a0The PSP was instructed to pay this charter aircraft invoice from their budget through a settlement agreement process for three flights in January 2025 when an undisclosed party from the governor\u2019s administration booked it and sent them the bill. Per the invoice, the charter flew to locations at which the governor was holding press events the same days. This charter service did not go through the normal procurement process which would have required a solicitation of bids and a contract, and hence it was paid through a settlement agreement negotiated through the governor\u2019s Office of General Counsel. The PSP representative was unaware of the passengers on the charter flights but said a list would be obtained and submitted to the committee, but no such list has been provided by PSP despite a follow up reminder.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Misrepresented executive aircraft operating costs.<\/strong>\u00a0PennDOT stated they have spent about $1.7 million annually on operating costs for their executive aircraft during the past two years but have billed agencies less than $425,000 each year for use of the aircraft because there is \u201cno point in us having state aircraft if agencies can\u2019t afford to use it.\u201d But that means the actual cost to taxpayers of PennDOT\u2019s aircraft operations is four times the agency charges that have been widely reported in the media, and the cost-effectiveness of state-provided air travel can\u2019t be fairly evaluated against other transportation options. Oddly, when pressed on this large disparity at the end of the hearing, the PennDOT representative would not confirm the cost of their operations and responded, \u201cwe\u2019ll get back to you.\u201d PennDOT has still provided no explanation despite a follow up reminder.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Failure by PennDOT to update monthly online flight logs.<\/strong>\u00a0PennDOT admitted they failed to update their online flight logs monthly as required by statute, even after intense scrutiny at the February budget hearings, until Coleman inquired with them last month for details, blaming it on technical issue for which they will send further clarification to the committee. PennDOT has provided no explanation despite a follow up reminder.<\/li>\n<li><strong>PennDOT\u2019s compliance with PA Auditor General recommendation still unknown.<\/strong>\u00a0 Despite being asked the question in writing a month ago, PennDOT was still unsure whether they had complied with a 2007 State Auditor General Performance Audit recommendation that PennDOT request a determination from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regarding the compliance of its aircraft operations with federal regulations. PennDOT has provided no clarification despite a follow up reminder.<\/li>\n<li><strong>PennDOT doesn\u2019t require random drug tests for its pilots.<\/strong>\u00a0Unlike the PSP policy and FAA regulations covering charter and commercial operators, PennDOT does not require its pilots be randomly drug tested.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/senatordush.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sen. Chris Dush (R-25)<\/a>, committee vice chair, commented that he finds it \u201cdisturbing\u201d that the administration had not insisted upon this provision when negotiating the union contract.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Coleman said, \u201cWhile I appreciate that PennDOT and PSP sent representatives to my hearing, I was disappointed in many of their responses and inability to answer some critical questions and am even more astonished by their failure to provide promised details. We seem to have a gubernatorial administration right now that feels entitled to on-demand, state-provided air travel while refusing to offer full transparency and intentionally deceiving taxpayers about the true cost. Even California, a state more than three times bigger than Pennsylvania in both size and population, doesn\u2019t offer a state plane to its governor.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy questions need to be answered, and we must thoroughly evaluate our state\u2019s current aircraft operations. At a time when the legislature has been asked by this administration to appropriate $4 billion more than our expected revenues, we have to look at every activity of state government and decide if we really need to continue doing it this way. They may run, and they may even fly, but they can\u2019t hide from me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Information provided to TVL by:<br \/>\nLeo Knepper<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HARRISBURG \u2013\u00a0Sen. Jarrett Coleman (R-16)\u00a0exposed serious financial and operational concerns about the commonwealth\u2019s executive aircraft operations at a\u00a0public hearing\u00a0of the\u00a0Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee\u00a0in June. Continuing an investigation that began during &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=143605\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Coleman Seeks Answers About State Charter Flights and Cost Discrepancies<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142515,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[69,482],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-the-valley","category-press-release-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/coleman.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143605"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=143605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/142515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=143605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=143605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=143605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}