Government To Taxpayers: Old Law Or Free Technology?

At a time when government leaders -- and taxpayers for that matter -- struggle to save money, Pottstown spent nearly $60,000 on advertising over the last 32 months.

Yet borough officials didn't have a say regarding that expenditure.

Pennsylvania requires -- chiefly via a law that dates back to 1929 -- municipalities and school districts to purchase legal advertisements for reasons including school board meetings and requests for contract bids. The law states the ads must be "printed in newspapers of general circulation ... sold at fixed prices per copy per week, per month or per annum," according to the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association. 

For example, "The notice for bids shall be published at least two times at intervals of not less than three days in daily newspapers or once a week for two successive weeks in weekly newspapers," according to the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors' website. 

That means significant taxpayer dollars -- to the tune of over $26 million from state municipalities annually -- are pumped into local newspapers.

Local officials -- as well as school boards and municipal government leaders across the state -- want the option to publish legal ads on their own websites, which would be free in many cases, rather than pay newspapers to do the work.

"Any time the borough can save the taxpayers money and still deliver the service that is required, I believe it needs to be investigated," Pottstown Manager Jason Bobst said via email. "The borough spends thousands of dollars on advertising costs due to the legal requirements set by the state. In an era where we strive to be efficient and try to embrace technology as much as possible, the ability to use our own websites, or even a common website, needs to be investigated."

Others agree.

"The fees to advertise in the paper are high," West Pottsgrove Township Manager Ed Whetstone said.

According to PSATS, townships pay anywhere from $80 to $300 for a four-inch advertisement and more for bid and ordinance advertisements.

"For a while we spent a lot of money on zoning ads because we had a lot of zoning hearings," Whetstone said.

Additionally, if an ad runs for, say, a meeting that's canceled, a new ad must be purchased to publicize the new meeting date, Whetstone said.

"We do have a website ... We could put (legal ads) on the website relatively for free," Whetstone said. "I don't think we should be regulated (to) have to put it in the newspaper ... I think we should definitely have the option."

Many townships across the state feel the same way, said Elam Herr, assistant executive director of PSATS.

A few months ago, Herr, on behalf of over 1,400 PSATS member townships, appeared before the House Local Government Committee to advocate for HB 633, which he said "would give local governments the option to publish legal notices electronically in place of newspaper advertisements."

Townships comprise 95 percent of the state, Herr told the committee. 

The Office of Information Technology of the Office of Administration would maintain a list of the names of all websites used by local governments, Herr said in a statement to the committee.

"Many townships across the state currently have websites," the statement reads. "These sites are very easy to find using Internet search engines such as Google and Bing, even for an electronic novice ... One is hard pressed to find a township website that doesn’t prominently display meeting dates, times, and locations ... Every one of these postings, continually available, simple to find, and free of charge (unlike a newspaper of general subscription), is a far greater resource for any interested individual than the required annual legal notice in the local newspaper of general circulation."

Additionally, the Pennsylvania School Board Association in 2009 appeared before the House Judiciary Committee and presented in a statement:

"In a time of economic uncertainty, we cannot afford to ignore the possible cost savings that are created by allowing school districts and other local government entities to advertise legal notices in alternative ways."

PSBA also stated, "According to a study released by Penn State University in May 2006 entitled Cost Savings on Mandatory Legal Advertising by Local Governmental Entities, over a three-year period, the average expenditure on legal advertising per school district was $22,743, while the total spent by all school districts on legal advertising over the same time period was more than $11 million."

The same PSU study found, "Local governmental entities could have saved approximately $70 million dollars over three years if legal advertising were done on individual local government websites rather than in newspapers," PSBA stated.

And newspaper advertising costs have increased in recent years, Herr said.

In contrast, "Editors and publishers who testified for the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association told the House Local Government Committee that the legislation would undermine an important source of revenue for their ailing industry and make it more difficult for many senior citizens and other Pennsylvanians who don't use the Internet to locate important public information," according to an Associated Press report. 

But Herr argued, "If newspapers were truly interested in performing a valuable community service, they would make legal ads available at reasonable prices, even free-of-charge, and display the notices prominently on their websites."

On Wednesday, Herr said his association will continue to advocate for HB 633.

"We are still hearing from our members in support of this electronic advertising," he said. "They would save money with this proposal." 

Times are changing, Herr said and added "nobody ever thought of ... the Internet" when the mandatory newspaper advertising law was made decades ago.

The old rule is outdated and the new proposal would be voluntary, he said.

"Basically, what you would put in the newspaper, you could do electronically," Herr said. 

According to PSATS, a report by Penn State University-Harrisburg, "Cost Savings on Mandatory Legal Advertising by Local Government Entities," states local governments spend more than $26 million annually on required legal advertising and the City of Philadelphia paid close to $4 million in newspaper legal ads in just one year.

 --- Here's what other local municipalities recently spent on mandatory newspaper advertising:

• Lower Pottsgrove Township budgeted $6,500 for 2011 and to date spent $2,350

• Upper Pottsgrove Township expended approximately $5,000 last year 

• Norristown paid:

2008: $32,888.48

2009: $37,284.50

2010: $11,877.32

Norristown Patch Editor James Myers contributed to this report.